
Bar Thuldy's statue, 'Liberty Frightenin' de World'
(Image by Metropolitan Museum of Art) Details DMCA
Yesterday, on a day visit to Washington, DC, where I used to live, a garrulous taxi driver struck up a conversation whose high point, for me, related to his apparent indecision about whom to vote for for president. In that he was African American, I was surprised, but nearly gasped when he told me he planned to vote twice, once by mail and once at the polls in person. I quickly warned him that this was a felony, that he would be thrown in jail for it (I exaggerated for patriotism's sake). He asked me how much I hated Trump, not why, and I gave him some answers. I assumed that this extrovert had lots of friends and hoped he'd spread the word.
Years ago, in an article I can't even find, I counted the lies G. W. Bush had offered the press as reasons for his Iraq invasion--more than 20.
And I thought that this was a nadir.
Now Trump is giving orders to rewrite American history texts because they are too left-wing. Maybe I first studied U.S. history in a bigoted southern parochial school, but I don't remember anything left wing about it. I met students there who were pro-slavery one hundred years after the Emancipation Proclamation.
Will the Trump administration proceed to disallow votes on the basis of possible double voting?
How much lighter fluid can be sprayed through the already-polluted airs of democracy before the ultimate wildfire?
I hold on to hope by a frayed string that I hope won't burn.
How many people will double vote?
How can we reverse that heinous suggestion?