Persimmon Alley Press
Persimmon Alley Press
  • About Persimmon Alley Press
  • Books
    • Close Encounters with the Cold War
    • Mother's Century: A Survivor, Her People and Her Times
    • Encounters: Ten Appointments with History
    • Killer Protocols
    • Clean Coal Killers
    • The Killer Trees
    • A Feast of Famine
    • Molly Malice in Alterland
    • Alligator In My Basement
    • Sudden Addiction
    • The Flesh of the Cedarwood
  • Smoke the Dottle
  • Richard's Rants
  • Contact

Rant 612: Could We Turn the Page?

12/11/2020

0 Comments

 
Picture
​“Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.”
--Lord Krishna from the Bhagavad-Gita
 
This famous quotation came to worldwide attention after it was uttered by J. Robert Oppenheimer, scientific director of the Manhattan Project, in the early morning of July 16, 1945 upon witnessing the detonation of Trinity, the world’s first atomic bomb, in New Mexico’s high desert. His resort to this Hindu declaration was a warning to humanity about the implications of what he and his 2,000 physicists working on the project had unleashed.
 
These words seem particularly appropriate again today when contemplating our current world destroyer as he annihilates every remaining norm he has not already shattered in his four years of behaving like a presidential wrecking ball. His attempt to destroy American democracy is every bit as world-altering and consequential as the advent of the nuclear age. His attempted coup d’état may not succeed in keeping him in office, but it may upend what we have come to realize is the fragile democratic basis of our government.
 
The alternate universe in which Trump’s base resides is unfortunately impervious to facts. This is a huge problem for the incoming Biden administration and for the country’s future, given the base’s delusional belief that Biden is an illegitimate president. I don’t know how or if this Big Lie can be surmounted, but I am convinced that the ability to turn this country around and bring it back to a semblance of normalcy depends upon Biden being able to do just that.
 
If the economy can bounce back strongly, I don’t think it will be necessary to convince all 74 million Trump voters that facts matter and that President Biden was duly elected. It might be possible to persuade a substantial cohort of them who currently persist in occupying a dream world divorced from reality, notwithstanding that their dreamscape will be daily fueled by the lunatic fringe media intent on continually feeding their delusions.
 
A robust economy hinges on the execution of four transformative policies that will help them in tangible ways positively affecting their pocketbooks, all four of which were beyond Trump’s attention span or capabilities: (1) Managing the pandemic responsibly and moving past it toward economic restoration. (2) Successfully tackling the opioid epidemic. (3) Creating good paying jobs in exurban and rural areas through extensive infrastructure and retraining initiatives. (4) Focusing on the job-generation that intelligent climate change policies can effect. In short, demonstrating that they are no longer being left behind and will clearly be better off than they were during Trump’s destructive, do-nothing tenure.
 
A pocketful of cash would be a powerful antidote to fear, anger, resentment and fantasy.
 
Dick Hermann
December 11, 2020

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Picture

    Author

    Richard Hermann is the author of thirteen books, including Encounters: Ten Appointments with History and, most recently, Mother's Century: A Survivor, Her People and Her Times. Soon to be released is his upcoming Close Encounters with the Cold War, a personal reflection on growing up in the nuclear age. He is a former law professor and entrepreneur, and the founder and president of Federal Reports, Inc., a legal information and consulting firm that was sold in 2007. He has degrees from Yale University, the New School University, Cornell Law School and the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General’s School. He lives with his wife, Anne, and extraordinary dog, Barkley, in Arlington, Virginia and Canandaigua, New York.

    Archives

    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed