For example, I continue to be horrified by the way our Federal government is interfering with the policing of select urban populations. Renee Good’s and Alex Pretti’s murders by ICE agents are particularly disgusting. Of course, moments after each happened my Facebook feed was stuffed with posts trying to tell me exactly what had happened, why it had happened, and who had been responsible. And that the victims were obviously either perfect saints or demented terrorists, and I had better know within seconds which they were.
The flurry of posts so immediately and profoundly cancelled out one another that I could only conclude that none of the posters really knew what they were talking about. Not really, whether from the President or from anyone else. By the time I figured out what I thought about Ms. Good’s death, I had been distracted into some new lunacy. It took me a lot less time to decide what I thought about Mr. Pretti’s death. Still, I had to be sure for myself.
One incontrovertible fact is that they were two American citizens, shot dead by agents of our--and their!--government. It is apparently in this government’s interest to encourage us to lose track of that fact.
It finally has occurred to me that, for me, what’s going on in our nation and world feels a lot like the neuropathy that afflicts my feet.
Neuropathy is a condition where your nerves no long react to stimuli. When my feet touch the ground—as they do most of the time I am awake—they do not send a clear message to my brain about exactly where are and what kind of ground they are on. So my brain becomes uncertain about what to do in order to keep me upright. That makes me feel unbalanced, as if I could fall over at any time. I get frightened of walking at all.
There is no cure for my neuropathy. I have to learn to live with it. A cane, sometimes a walker, helps. I also need to learn to pay closer attention to my surroundings, to focus on where I am and where I am going.
My neuropathy is called “idiopathic,” which means we do not know what caused it. It is also called “progressive,” by which the medical profession means that it will only get worse. Frankly, because I am progressive politically, I’d rather it were called regressive.
In any case, it strikes me that our nation and world are afflicted with a social neuropathy that is designed to keep us off balance and off the streets. Unlike my neuropathy, however, the cause of our neuropathy is well known. A far right-wing, undemocratic, racist, and hate-filled inflammation inflicts our body politic, and many of us—including me—are struggling to find our balance and discern a path forward, a path that we can walk.
If you think I ought to apologize for the words I just used to identify the sources of our nation's neuropathy, I will not. At one time I thought those charges too extreme, but no longer. In fact, there are others equally despicable that I could add to them, but the list is too long for good writing. Also, I am still a little bit polite.
It comes down to the fact that democracies everywhere are under relentless attacks from forces that want to remake the world it their own terrible images, reducing all but the richest and best-placed of us to peasant status. And those forces do not want us to know what is happening to us until it is too late for our democracies to regain their balance.
I have no pain associated with my neuropathy. That is fortunate for me, because many people suffer from such pain. On the other hand, I was not aware that I had neuropathy for some time, a time during which I might have fallen and hurt myself very seriously. Similarly, by focusing on immigrants and transsexuals and other vulnerable populations, while not seeming to threaten or hurt majority folks, the anti-democratic forces numb people like me to what is happening. Until it happens to me.
One of the things about neuropathy as I experience it is that a loud noise, or an unexpected flash of light, can upset my balance much worse than it would have just a few years ago. I am always on my guard lest I be taken by surprise and thrown down. There is no such thing as a relaxing walk. The only way really to relax is sit still, to stop moving, to give in to my dead nerves—to a lack of nerve, if you will.
The constant assault upon all that is good, true, and beautiful is no accident. Project 2025, which Trump disavowed during his last campaign, is, in fact, in full swing, and its noises and flashes unnerve and unsettle us moment by moment. We who believe in democracy and the intrinsic worth of every human being are constantly assaulted. It’s sensory overload.
One example: earlier this week the USA pulled out of the World Health Organization. Once that would have been big news. But now, who even noticed it? Same thing with the suggestion by the head of the Immunization Committee that polio and measles vaccinations might not need to be required. Ten years ago, that would have gotten a lot of attention. But not now.
Consider the annual meeting of rich nations and people in Davos, Switzerland. They call it the World Economic Forum, which it could only be if poor folks and nations were represented there as equals, which they are not, so the Forum is not for or about the world.
President Trump gave a speech at Davos, a brief part I accidentally heard. He was bragging about how rich he was and how rich he was making everyone listening to him, especially Tim Cooke, and that good times were ahead for everyone who did as he directed. The NY Times reported that although political leaders received his remarks coolly, the “financial titans” there gave him a warm welcome.
Well, duh.
For one thing, and based solely on that snippet of Mr. Trump’s speech, it’s hard to believe that anyone could still confuse him with Jesus. Jesus had virtually nothing good to say about worldly wealth or its pursuit. But some professed followers of Jesus still confuse the two men, a sure sign of how off-balance they are.
The larger point is that a world forum about economies should ponder what will make all of us at least well enough off the claim life’s basic necessities. Instead, rich folks are considering how to feather their own yachts (excuse the mixed metaphor) even more luxuriously. I am certain they enjoyed their flights back home on their private jets.
So how do we regain our sense of stability in order to move ahead?
One way is through solidarity with others. I get a sense of such solidarity in the diverse church where we worship and sing. I am with people who are not just like me, and the D.E.I. of the congregation is filled with joy. We hear good news, and resolve to live as people who bear good news for everyone.
Another thing Americans can do is to hang on tight to our founding documents and vision. Here I take issue with some of my progressive fellow-travelers. I believe that many of us have grown so accustomed to listening to and affirming fact-based critiques of these United States that we didn’t realize when being critical became an unexamined habit. We would rather hear negative assessments of our nation than positive ones because they confirm our assumption that we aren’t there yet, wherever “there” is, and never will be. I note that Martin Luther King, Jr. often held up the ideals of America while condemning our failure to live up to them, angering people on all sides of the political spectrum.
(Since I drafted this essay, the Trump administration has removed sign boards about slavery from Independence Mall in Philadelphia. It also wants us to suffer from national amnesia.)
I think we need to speak up. I considered writing a blog last week about the President’s obsession with owning Greenland (and he is obsessed because he thinks if the US owns Greenland, he himself owns Greenland!), but I decided to shoot off quick notes to my Republican representatives in Congress. Only one has replied to me so far, perhaps because deep in their hearts (I dare hope) they know how dangerous and crazy Mr. Trump is about Greenland and don’t know what to say so they say nothing. Oh well, no matter, it’s all fixed now. Because of tariffs. Or not. Who knows?
See what I mean about not being able to maintain balance and keep upright?
We also need to identify clearly the real players in this whole mess, most of whom were not elected by us. For example, presidential advisor Stephen Miller, who believes only in brute, amoral, power, and who uses it. And then there’s our Supine Court, victim of convenient legal theories that take no account of real people and how we live in the real world in 2026. And a silent Congress, endlessly intent on proving that January 6, 2021, was just another day of shuffling tourists in the U.S Capitol. Trump might go out of office, but the just-behind-the-scenes actors would likely still there, pulling the strings. I doubt a President Vance would get rid of any of them.
What else can we do? I haven’t mentioned reaching across the barriers that divide us in order to seek the elusive common ground. In theory, that’s where we need to go and what we need to do. But I am not sure how productive a conversation I could have with someone who still thinks Biden did not fairly win the 2020 election, or that keeping us constantly off our balance is not an intentional priority of the second Trump administration.
The far right wants us to descend into utter chaos so the few can take over and make the rest of us what it wants us to be. (Far left regimes often use the same tactic.) Always for our own good, of course. It’s as if the nurses on the ward want their patients to become so dependent upon them that the patients no longer feel any desire to make any decisions about their own well-being. Recall “Big Nurse” in Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. (Another essay?)
So, I think that “we, the people” are dangerously off-balance, and that such is what our current leadership needs us to be. It wants us not to feel where we are, in case we’d begin to regain our equilibrium and get back on track toward becoming a nation where all are created and created to be equal. Until then, our nation and our democracy are at grave risk of falling flat on our faces.
And getting shot in the back.
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