No one, of course, has any appetite for
seeing a certain name again, except as
a line to avoid selecting, at the top of
his ballot, At last the gathering of a di-
verse and remarkably distributed storm
of revulsion is poised to restore self-
determination to the United States. The
ingenious photography of Damon Winter of
The New York Times portrays a rescue op-
eration deeply reminiscent of med-evac
Hueys lifting from the battlefields of
Southeast Asia, saving the passengers if
possible, but more certainly ceding na-
tive ground from which they are removed.
Nor was this an expulsion by cruel chance,
but by the incapacity and illegitimacy of
the occupation, revealed in its helpless
incompetence and reliance on its own lies.
This chance is one not to blow, but also
not to crow. It's generous, even to desig-
nate this deliverance as a restoration,
given how few have ever influenced their
own governance in this country. But every
such valuation is relative, and is being
re-examined under pressures both urgent -
pandemic, racial discord, economic dis-
location - and implacable - climatic
crises, other environmental despoiling,
and international security hazards both
recklessly propagated or negligently
denied by the government soon to depart.
The circumstances are auspicious for a
popular insistence on self-determination.
They are equally vulnerable to repressive
pre-emption, which is the unfailing custom
of our history. But now at least we know
why: racism has been the contortionist
corrupter of every populist opportunity in
this nation's experience. This contortion-
ist is avid to overwhelm the pending elec-
tion by intimidation, deception, malicious
prosecution, and every rejection available.
At last, the great anti-progressive energy
of the American experience has fallen into
the hands of a spent force. We now behold
the readying of an electoral swift sword -
a climax of nothing, a beginning to be de-
termined by the People. We have our vote.
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