Paranoia strikes deep, into your heart it will creep

Happy New Year.

We are glad to say goodbye to 2020, the Year of the Pandemic. It also was the year that a majority of voters and Electoral College tallies booted Trump from office.

But not soon enough.

He's done plenty of damage to our democratic republic since Nov. 3. Call it a massive temper tantrum or Trump's reveal of his fascist inner self. He always wanted to the Da Boss or Der Fuehrer, as if he could ever be a leader to those of us with a heart and soul. 

Interesting reading in the New Yorker about America's authoritarian tendencies. Adam Gopnick writes in "What we get wrong about America's crisis of democracy." His main point is that authoritarianism is always with us and it behooves all of us to battle it all of the time. 

The default condition of humankind, traced across thousands of years of history, is some sort of autocracy... America itself has never had a particularly settled commitment to democratic, rational government. 

He goes on to talk about demagogues such as Barry Goldwater and Joseph McCarthy. Roy Cohn even rears his ugly head, as he did in "Angels in America." Cohn counseled McCarthy "in all things conspiratorial" and, not surprisingly, was Donald Trump's mentor.

As Steven Stills wrote and Buffalo Springfield sang: 

Paranoia strikes deep, into your heart it will creep. It starts when you're always afraid. Get out of line, the men come and take you away.

You are not paranoid to see an autocrat behind every tree. In the Trump administration, they are political appointees in very important positions. They also are GOPers elected to Congress and, alas, to the Wyoming State Legislature. Although they talk about them a lot, they don't believe in democratic principles. They are always with us, Gopnick says. He notes this:

The temptation of anti-democratic cult politics is forever with us, and so is the work of fending it off.

Damn. Just as we thought that all of our work is done here. Biden is in, Trump is out. Depending on what happens next week in Georgia, Democrats may even control both houses of Congress. Can we now rest on our laurels, as bloated as they may be from 10 months sitting in easy chairs avoiding the plague?

No.

The authoritarian Goldwater said something about eternal vigilance. That's what we have to be -- eternally vigilant. No rest for the weary, those of us whop have been involved in progressive politics most of our lives. We work hard to get Democrats elected and then relax. While we're at play, the bad guys are marshaling their forces, raising money, and forming PACs and think tanks to capture the next election cycle. Scary news this morning: Trump is the GOP front-runner for 2024. He will be merely 78 at election time, the same age President-elect Biden is now. If Trump wins (God forbid) he will be 82 when he gets impeached in 2028, the same age Generalissimo Francisco Franco was when he died in 1975 just in time to be a buzz-phrase on SNL: 

And this just in -- Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead!

After a year such as this one, it's painful to hear that our work is not done but just beginning. We can never let up. Retirees such as me cannot go to Florida and play pickleball all day. We can go to Florida but, the first thing to do after buying up all the sunscreen in Walgreen's is seek out fellow Democrats and get involved. Voting is important but just a tiny piece of this. Work for candidates. Volunteer for good causes. Attend city council meetings and, when necessary, speak up on behalf of accountability. Write biting letters to the editor and use humor when appropriate -- this will make friends among progressives and befuddle authoritarians such as Trump who were born with no sense of humor. 

Democracy is not easy. If it were, everyone would have it.