di·a·tribe

/ˈdīəˌtrīb/

noun

a forceful and bitter verbal attack against someone or something.

I am bitter. I am angry.

How have we let Them have this much power? How have we allowed the Fourth Estate, which sacrificed it’s autonomy on the altar of profit decades ago, rob us of our friends and family, cut us off from our neighbors, people with whom not long ago we could have disagreed with and still not dissembled our entire social network.

How can we look in the mirror and acknowledge that a meme, a commercial, a news broadcast, an out-of-context sound byte, echoing in perpetuity through the halls of cyberspace, made us unfriend, block, insult, or even FEEL that rising heat of anger in our cheeks toward people we once loved and respected?

I cannot in good conscience condone our electoral process or any of it’s trappings as a noble or necessary endeavor. It has become one more ploy in assuring that we, as a nation, as a community, will never again be united. I cannot in good conscience encourage my children to vote, when I am asking them to be complicit in a charade of virtue signaling and moral posturing, adding their names in support to candidates who will only make them regret their decision. I can’t ask them to assume that responsibility. I am ashamed for the America my children are inheriting.

I am ashamed of the petulant and indulgent society that sacrificed honor and integrity for power and profit long ago. I am ashamed that we have squandered our inheritance. We have traded our national destiny for a bowl of pottage. And the bowl we pass on to our children is now empty.

And we stand on the brink of internal conflict. No matter who wins this election, we all lose. Neither side will admit defeat, when in reality, we have been collectively defeated already - evidenced by the candidates we have before us for the highest office in our nation. The battle is lost, but the war is just beginning.

The next few weeks will tell the story of a sick nation. A house divided. The One splintered into the divisible many. And we are all complicit, regardless of how we have voted.

Love your neighbor. Turn off your television. Read books written before 1950. Don’t share The Thing that makes the “righteous” heat rise up in your face, because more than likely, no matter how resonant, it came from one of our good friends overseas. From China. From Russia. From the ones who watch with bated breath, giggling with the good fortune of our implosion.

We are in a long term cycle and the worst part of it is beginning now. Find your tribe. Love your people. Create security. Quietly define and defend what matters, and I promise you, what’s happening out there isn’t what matters.