The timeline of history is like a mechanical timepiece, dependent on the advances of men rather than the autonomy of the most advanced machines.
The clarity of the dates is the work of the timekeeper, of the man who thinks the start of a new year and a new decade validates the accuracy of his time card; that what occludes his vision is irrelevant to his status as an oracle, because he believes he has 20/20 vision; that his past predictions of hope and change do not demand revision; that his statements about the present do not require us to question his words about the future, because any changes to the record—any wrongs in the record—are the result of the actions of a singular wrongdoer named Donald Trump.
Such is the timeline that runs from the election of the 44th president of the United States to the inauguration of his successor.
The timeline reads like the end times, starting with a son’s dreams of his father and ending in a long national nightmare of allusions to the fatherland.
The timeline will determine how we read history.
The timeline will be the principal history our children read unless we try to win the culture by winning the next election.
At stake is the truth of a word—a catchall for the effects of destruction without an ounce of creation—in which the greatest threat to domestic tranquility is a pink slip and a paper prescription.
One is a prescription for despair, while the other is a permission slip to die from addiction. The two define the word that governs the union of those states where factories have no workers, workers no jobs, unions no masters or apprentices.
The word is carnage.
The word is sacrilege to Hillary Clinton and George W. Bush.
The word is sacred to how we view the promise of American life.
Whether the promise still lives and progress is possible—whether the next decade is better than the last—is why we vote, regardless of whether progressives hate the president.