Each and every day seems to be a new “low” when it comes to those currently sitting in the driver’s seats of the national “leadership”. Lies and fabrications have become pro forma pieces of every tweet, speech, press conference, and ads. Cruelty has replaced (yes, “trumped”) kindness and empathy.

It begins at the “top” with the daily ramblings of a petulant “would be” boy-king who has, from the beginning, given up any pretense of protocol, civility, truth, justice and yes, the (former) American way. As bad and as annoying as that is, the fact that the system of checks and balances has also been discarded by those currently surrounding him and in a legislative majority to serve their own purposes is what leads to the frustration and yes the worry that future generations will be digging out from the excrement heaped upon them by the ignorant, misogynistic, angry collections of both elected officials and mobs of blind followers who have surfaced over the last 10 years (let’s face it, they have always been there, but they now feel empowered to give voice to what was once something that stayed in the shadows at least for the prior 40 or so years).

The total lack of decorum from the top is also frustrating. Once upon a time, a tan suit caused an uproar, but today, constant insults don’t even raise hackles among the “faithful”, in fact, if anything those result in cheers and applause.

All that said, I still believe that common sense will win out, that older voices like Bruce Springsteen and Tom Morello, along side those like Olivia Rodrigo and Kacey Musgraves will win the fight. Hope is the best we have and something that we can’t live without.

It really does seem like it’s always darkest before the dawn…time for the light to start shining…