My money is on dementia...

 Any American who is not sleepwalking through this world must know by now that we are on the precipice of a very dangerous cliff.  If we fail to engage or simply fall back on apathy for any number of reasons--all of them hard to justify on any level--we will wake up in November and find that we have a wannabe dictator for a president.  But, at that point, he'll no longer be simply an aspiring despot; he'll be starkly FUCKING REAL. And, this time, he'll be very different than he was during his first term.  If we thought he did some real damage to the country then--there is a long laundry list, topped by Jan6--we'll be horrified by what he can do in his second term, especially if SCOTUS arms him with any meaningful immunity.  And, they're dangerous too.....

Donald J. Trump has made little effort to conceal what his plans are if he regains the oval office.  He will go after all of the many people whom he feels attacked him, especially those in the media who have been pointing to him and trying to warn us that he's not merely mentally ill, but he's increasingly demented and losing control of much of his life.  HE IS DANGEROUS.....very much so, and anybody who doesn't see that is just playing with fire. 

I have previously mentioned a story-- both a novel, and then a movie--that dates from the early seventies. "In the Garden of the Finzi-Continis" is the story of a Jewish family who live in northern Italy in the early thirties.  They meet on Sundays at the family's villa in the garden and the story is what they talk about.  With one exception, none of them is able to conceive of what is coming.  They just cannot imagine that Hitler...and Mussolini, of course...are as utterly evil and potentially vicious as they eventually prove to be. They are about to be swept away by the tidal wave of fascism that is coming their way....and, they just are unable to accept that it is. 

Aside: In 2004, when a tsunami hit Banda Ache it swept away tens of thousands of people, Only the animals, especially the elephants, realized it was coming.  And, those elephants ignored their handlers, (mahouts), and fled to higher ground.  Over 61000 people just in Banda Ache, and as many as 220,000 in the greater area affected by it, died that day.  I have seen the videos of its approach, and it's as if most of the people simply cannot or refuse to see it as it mounds up offshore. 

If we act as if nothing is seriously wrong at this moment in our history, as a nation and as a planet....we will effectively be among those on the beach as the great wave bears down on us.

The State of the Union address last night was a relief for my wife and me.  It proved beyond any doubt that Joe Biden is not senile or incapable of doing the job he wants to finish.  He may be in his early 80s, but he is still fully present and highly capable...far more so than the rapidly declining Orange Idiot.  

More and more experts, the most respected members of the political punditry and the psychiatric communities are stepping forward to offer their opinions that Trump is not just slightly impaired but that he's mid-stream in a downward spiral into full-blown dementia. Many of these experts have mentioned that they would remain silent  under normal circumstances, and they have been chastised by the American Psychiatric Association for speaking about the condition of someone they don't know as a patient.  But, all of them have said the situation we face is too dangerous and dire to remain silent.

At this point, every rally speech the Idiot gives is being examined to see how many times he exhibits symptoms of this onrushing dementia.  It seems to be accelerating and is already mid-process.  The specific mistakes he makes are the telltale signs of brain damage and not just mild damage either.

So, here we are and this diseased and dangerous man wants nothing more than to be in charge of, hell, everything. His speeches are increasingly full of not at all subtle references to killing people.  He wants to execute drug dealers, and maybe addicts as well.  Perhaps he's taking a page out of Philippine dictator Duterte's handbook.  

His most recent speeches have been long meandering rants about how dark, and about to be much darker, America's future is.  He paints dire pictures of everything falling apart and society collapsing in a Twilight of the Gods type funeral pyre.  And, he reminds his fawning audience constantly that he is the ONLY ONE who can fix it all.  This is not just idle speculation; it's a mirror reflection of what is in his rapidly devolving brain.  He leans on the podium and speaks in this sleazy, lazy style--spinning lie upon lie--that anybody but true MAGAs would find disturbing....and alarming....as he rants on. Much of what he says is difficult to understand because he's also losing the ability to form words and thoughts.

He is visibly and undeniably acutely impaired.

And, if we, as individuals who see what is happening don't do everything we can think of to antidote his steady stream of poison..............then we will deserve what we get.  

But, the elephants will be long gone.