A turning point? Maybe so. Meanwhile: Wait with Energy.

Will this be a year that will constitute a turning point in our democracy?

Can you feel that something is about to happen? Or is it that this observer, like so many others, so desperately want something to happen that we're looking past the processes with which we wish to bring it about?

The situation is that urgent. This administration represents not only poor, distorted, and irresponsible governance, but the abrogation and abandonment of it--appointments not made, regulations not observed, humanity ignored. Each day, it gets worse. Each day, there is more ground to be made up to restore the United States of America to its former position in the world.

But an event like a presidential election can't, and shouldn't be, undone in a moment or in any particular future single moment. If we respect the rule of law, then we should respect the accumulation of "official" information through legal means (not just the press, which doesn't get everything right all the time, though the most responsible outlets try very hard all the time).

Heaven knows, this has taken long enough. We would like to think that, with all that time and energy expended, that the Mueller report on the machinations, manipulations, lies and horrible illegalities of 45 and his minions will be a devastating compilation of facts, which together add up to mean that this president has to go, and the sooner the better.

Except that all the horror, exasperation and disdain that we have seen and expressed to this point has meant, so far, exactly nothing. Dave Barry's End of the Year Roundup, written for the Washington Post, pokes endless fun at the MSNBC/CNN wags who constantly express their absolute conclusions that whatever has just happened has been, finally, the final straw that will break 45's back and rush him out of office--the thing that happens before it happens except it's not happening. He'll quit, they say. He'll make a deal before it all hits the fan.

But there's no reason to believe he'll do that. He doesn't have to. He doesn't read, he doesn't think beyond his horrible self, and he doesn't listen to his advisors, but he can count. For him, the magic number is 34--the number of Senators who would have to support any impeachment accusations.

The problem we're having, still, is believing that this is all that matters to someone to whom so much else should matter. It's believing that normal, ethical, caring thinking simply doesn't work with 45, because he's incapable of it.

In the early 1950s, a Harvard professor made a study of teenagers in several countries, the U.S. included, to pose questions from which a scale of moral reasoning was derived. He concluded that moral thinking is done in stages, in which someone who gains a certain stage does not return to the earlier stage from which they evolved (though there is overlap). In other words: Their sense of morality only increases--if it does at all, which sometimes it doesn't. The measuring stick of morality at every stage is the degree to which someone else or some higher cause matters, regardless of oneself. The highest level is a 6, which very few people ever achieve at any time: a Gandhi, an MLK or a Mother Teresa. The lowest is a zero, which is nearly unfathomable--that no matter what happens, someone does whatever they wish to do to anyone else, regardless of pain or pleasure, with absolutely no regard to consequences. None.

45 isn't exactly there. He does care about one thing: His own pleasure or pain. That would put him at Level 1. He avoids doing only those things that would not make him feel good right this very minute, or in the long run, like jail. If he happens to do what others would call the "right" thing, it is only because he understands what he has to gain from it--in this case, political support. That is why, for instance, that his claim that he has a bible study in the White House was stated exactly once, and why he hasn't, and doesn't, follow up by going to church (except at his wife's request, and then not to actively participate at a funeral for a presidential colleague). If it's mentioned at some future date, he'll go to church to demonstrate to others that it might matter to him--or, if it doesn't, a staffer can claim that it does; after all, look at the pictures. But don't watch what he says, watch what he does, including doing nothing.

That's what we're dealing with. It's deeply unconscionable for most of us to consider that the rest of us support someone without a conscience. But they do because they are so taken by his personality that they continue to believe that he cares about them. No: He doesn't care about anyone else. Only when they suffer from sufficient discomfort will they turn on him--and the economy will have to get pretty awful for that to happen.

Maybe that will be the real turning point. Meanwhile, we must wait, as discomfiting as that has been and will be. We are about to enter a time of all kinds of adverse tweeting and acceleration of accusations--even more destabilizing than it has been. Keep your eyes on Nancy Pelosi, Mitch McConnell, Robert Mueller, and the Justice Department. They hold most of the cards. (By the way: Consideration of the Bill of Rights and the rule of law and what they truly mean is operating at a Level 5--near the top of the ladder. That's why they are so challenging to support and maintain, depending upon the situation, but that's a topic for another time.)

But the wild card of power still belongs to 45 as long as he remains in office and remember--it's all about him and what he can get away with. That's a Level 1 practitioner for you.

Waiting smugly with confidence in the final result is inadvisable, for there will be all kinds of legalized pushing back by 45 and his lawyers, and further, deeper attempts to gin-up his all-too-loyal crowds with ad hominem attacks disguised as campaign speeches. If you've been stunned and appalled before, get ready for a new level of disgust.

Instead of panicking, though, let's do something else: Energized waiting. In other words: Organizing. Organize discussions. Go to organized rallies. Keep the awareness going, as distasteful as it is. Keep building the opposition so when it finally gets to the tipping point, 45's applecart will go over quickly, decisively, and finally. On that day, he will no longer matter. We will, though. And so will the Constitution. It will be worth the wait. But it won't happen without the rest of us.

Be well. I'll see you down the road.


Mister Mark