Mega (Maga) Buzz Kill

I flinched at the sight of a crocodile gliding by, the curves of its scaly back giving it the look of a human skeleton. I was far less wary of the iguanas, perched at regular intervals, like statues, on the piled rocks lining the marina, each one shaded to blend meticulously into its background of the moment. I would not have noticed any of the creatures, had they not been pointed out to me. If they noticed me, they didn't let on. We all went about our business, whatever that might be. 

I flinched again when I returned to my chair at the pool, thinking I had left exotic and unfamiliar creatures behind. There was a pink MAGA 2020 hat on the chair next to mine, a thing as unfamiliar to me as an iguana or a crocodile, certainly less expected. I glanced around, wondering who had put it there, thinking (however irrationally) that it had to be a joke. Here in Mexico, I have left the stresses of home behind, except for occasionally checking the "tweets of interest" that mysteriously appear on my phone, filling me in on the latest outrages and confirming my seemingly endless capacity, these days, for disgust and disbelief. I have long ago ceased to blame 45 for his own excesses and lies and appalling and alarming behavior, having accepted that he is an unfortunate freak of nature. I focus, now, on his enablers, and by that I don't mean the overtly freakish sycophants but the silent ones. The once decent (ish) sorts who have opted for tacit acquiescence, as if this too shall pass and why raise a fuss when there appears to be some benefit to outweigh the tremendous costs. 

The pink MAGA hat was neither a joke nor, as I thought it should be, cause for some shame. The hat's owner wore it proudly over her sunburned cheeks, as certain of her "rightness" as, say, the predatory crocodile, or the iguana, who appears oblivious to the irony of existing just to stay still and blend in. Surely, I thought, she must be an anomaly, as certainly as she would be if she walked into my Chicago neighborhood. 

A couple walked by and stopped dead in their tracks. I thought maybe they would lash out, expose the woman's atrociousness, tell her such a hat did not belong here. They looked like a perfectly reasonable couple. 

We were just at a rally, you could feel the excitement, it was amazing. It was all I could do to keep down my guacamole. We were so lucky, he called us over, told us we were a great looking couple, took a picture with us. So exciting. What?

Only moments earlier, I had begun a new book by Erik Larson, In The Garden of Beasts, set in the early days of Hitler's Germany. The dawn of a very dark time, in Larson's words. A paragraph in the opening chapter caught my attention, an apt description of our own dawn of darkness:

I have always wondered what it would have been like for an outsider to have witnessed firsthand the gathering dark of [blank's] rule. How did the city look, what did one hear, see, and smell, and how did diplomats and other visitors interpret the events occurring around them? Hindsight tells us that during that fragile time the course of history could so easily have been changed. Why, then, did no one change it? Why did it take so long to recognize the real danger posed by [blank] and his regime?

Why, indeed. The problem, at least for now, is not that nobody recognizes the real danger; certainly outsiders and diplomats and, yes, Democrats and a smattering of fallen away Republicans are acutely aware. But only the ones who hold the rudders of power can change the course. Only the ones who have made their deals with this devil can begin to erase the rising stench. 

Crocodiles will glide on, and iguanas will continue to blend. There is no other way to be, no other course to take. We humans should know better.