I’ve been arguing with myself over how to describe the transition into 2024. Sliding. Falling. Crushing. Panicking. Skipping. I mean, 2023 was not too bad for me/us. We’re slowly rejoining the rest of the human race with dinners out, attending plays and the movies, going to other people’s houses for parties, and having people over to our house. Finally, we got those long-awaited renovations and repairs done. I had a great year of writing, classes, and grades as I prepare to graduate in May 2024. I mean, everything has been chévere. So, you would think I would be happy to call this transition Moseying into 2024. You would think.

But I can’t seem to get too casual and optimistic about 2024. I mean, great moments are coming. January 1 is Sumire’s and my 39th Anniversary of living together. I will celebrate 40 years as a Californian in June (It feels like home). We’ll celebrate 37 years of marriage and 41 years since we met that September in Baltimore, Maryland (long story). Hell, how could I forget that scheduled graduation in May? I am planning a trip back east for the first time in a long time to see family and friends in New York and my second home, Washington, D.C., where so many great and bad things happened. Of course, I have my bucket list that I intend to implement fully, so I expect to be happily busy in 2024. Then, why all the anxiety over 2024?

Oh yeah, something about threats of Democracy dying and fascism being imposed. Oh, that old thing. I mean, it’s not like we’ve not had crazy demagogues in our lifetime (1948-the present). And come on, independent and moderate voters will join sane Democrats to ensure that we don’t have a repeat election of the fool who knows no boundaries of decency and empathy, who has no clue about the nature of this country’s constitution, and who is only about revenge, retribution, stomping enemies, and turning this country into a replica of his best friend’s government, Russia. There is no way this is going to happen.

2016 was a fluke. We’ve seen him in action. We’ve heard his nonsensical screams, slurs, soulless blabbering, and gutter talk, all while making the debate about himself, a victim of a thousand cuts by hypothetical, imagined conspirators eager to defame him, charge him with false crimes with no foundations in reality. I mean, calling him Bozo the Clown is an insult to Bozo the Clown.

I don’t care what the polls say. I trust, that in the end, the real media, moderate Republicans and independent voters, registered democrats, Generations X, Y, Z, and Alpha, and even Boomers who have some sense still in them will reject this orange-flavored psycho because when push comes to shove, there is no going back to a time before Roe vs. Wade, the protections of the Civil Rights era, protections for LGBTQ people, and a life when the rights of all weren’t protected.

What the hell am I saying? Wake up, dude, this shit is real, and the Orange GOP is only concerned with one thing, and that is POWER. And if it means electing the Orange Sponge to complete their takeover of this nation’s legal, political, and social apparatus so they can get back to when America was great according to their definitions, then OK.

The last time I felt this much anxiety about an election was before I could vote, 1964—Johnson vs. Goldwater and the worries over World War Three. Sure, other elections made us nervous: Nixon v Humphrey, Reagan v Carter, Bush v Gore, and Clinton v Trump (and you can see how that one turned out). But this one scheduled for November 2024 feels different. Dangerously different.

The headline in the New York Times didn’t surprise me, but it sure raised the hairs on the back of my neck. “How Trump Plans to Wield Power in 2025: What We Know.” Check out the opening paragraph.

“Since beginning his 2024 presidential campaign, Donald J. Trump has said the “termination” of the Constitution would have been justified to overturn the 2020 election, told followers “I am your retribution” and vowed to use the Justice Department to prosecute his adversaries — starting with President Biden and his family.”

Jonathan Swan, Maggie Haberman, and Charlie Savage, New York Times, Dec. 26, 2023

This is the cause of a sniveling, immature little man who cries wolf and acts like the narcissistic chump he has proven himself to be.

Where are the nods to protecting the Constitution, serving all Americans, ensuring our nation’s security, and protecting our rights, regardless of political party, religion, race, ethnicity, or home? Instead, we find ourselves at each other’s throats, cursing each other’s names into the wind, stocking our homes with survival kits awaiting the apocalypse and the second civil war egged on by a man-child whose allegiance to the ideals of this nation (as flawed as they may be) is questionable.

So here I am, optimistic about my personal and academic life, celebrating the future before me, dedicated to tackling my bucket list at 75 years of age, and yet, steeling myself for the coming civil war (oh, I’m serious as f*ck about this), wondering if I really should buy that AR-15 in the window, sign myself up for survival training, building a wall around my house with an underground panic room stocked with cans of pasteles and black beans and yellow rice and teriyaki chicken and bottled water and no flush toilets and thousands of rounds of ammunition and weapons up the ying yang (just in case). You can’t be too careful.

I must believe that, in the end, everyone in America is not crazy (I mean that word in the technical sense of its meaning). Sanity will win over insanity. Maturity will overcome immaturity. Good over evil. Empathy over apathy. Selflessness over self-interest.

Democracy has to win. The alternative is too scary even to envision.