Five days. It's finally come down to five days. I never thought we'd get here. The past (almost) four years have seemed like four interminable decades. In five days, we have the opportunity to vote out the mouth-breathing filth and his knuckle-dragging excrement of an administration. Will we do it? That shouldn't even be a question given Trump's negligence in handling the COVID-19 pandemic, his gleeful participation in sowing the seeds of hate and division in the country, the pathological lying and endless tweets, his cruelty and vindictiveness, the admiration for murderous dictators, the diminishment of the United States in the eyes of the rest of the world, the blatant disregard for any sense of civility that isn't self-serving. And that's not all. The list goes on and on. The evil and corruption are endless. He needs to go, should never have been near the White House in the first place. 

Now, after four hideous years, we have the opportunity to vote him out and I am not at all certain that it will happen. Because, in spite of everything, there are millions who appreciate the fact that, in at least one respect, they have a kindred spirit occupying the White House: his blatant hatred for all who are different--the other--mirrors their own. Only, in Donald Trump's case, most of this is purely self-serving. He tells the racists and homophobes and the other putrefied, self-proclaimed American "patriots" what they want to hear, but he hates them, too. He needs their votes, but he hates them all the same. Sure, he's a racist, that's never been in doubt. (His loathing for President Barack Obama is legendary and ongoing.) But, he's also a classist who disdains the hoi-polloi, an outsider, himself, who could never get through the gilded doors of those east coast blue-bloods who gave a cold shoulder to his social climbing vulgarity. 

Still, he stirs the waters of unrest by urging his supporters to monitor the voting polls on election day, instructs the Proud Boys (and other white nationalist groups) to "stand back and stand by". He's encouraging violence in such a way as to be able to distance himself from his words once any violence actually does break out. Every action, every phrase he utters comes with an emergency exit that offers him plausible deniability (at least to the all-important "base", who have proven that they don't much care what he does anyway) just in case the blowback gets too hot. The truth is that this flawed caricature, besides being President of the United States, is the most vile of cowards, the rich, old bad man in a moldy western who pays his underlings to do all his dirty work while he talks big and pounds his chest and then cowers in the corner once the bullets start flying. He is an anachronism, as are most of his most fervent enablers in Congress and the toadying members of his malevolent administration. And they are all extremely dangerous to the very concept of our democracy. 

And yet here we are, five days out from the most important election of our lifetimes and the fact remains that Donald J. Trump stands a better than average chance of being re-elected to a second term. This shouldn't even be a contest, not with the fundamentally decent Joe Biden running against him. Instead, we find ourselves in a state of unrest, of not knowing whether decency and renewed hope for our future will prevail, or if the darkness will continue for four more years, in which case, the United States of America, as we know it, will almost certainly cease to exist. It's no exaggeration to say that we have come to the crossroads, and that if we make the wrong choice, there will be no turning back. Not this time. As a nation, we've withstood a lot in our short history, but four more years of Donald Trump will almost certainly finish an already-diminished and tainted American Experiment. Trump's corruptive influence, the sheer multitude of dubious associates and enablers, and the cultists willing to die for him, are harbingers of worse things to come should he retain office. 

I am writing this because I can't concentrate on anything else right now. I'd prefer to be writing something amusing but this doesn't feel like the time for levity. This feels like life and death. 

Five more days. Just five more days. 

If the last four years have taught us anything, it's that on November 3, 2020, the shit, in one way or another, will hit the fan.