‘Shears’ | The Drawing Board

On Jan. 6, 2021, I was driving my son home from day care listening to the frantic news reports about the insurrection at the Capitol while I navigated the treacherous curves of Lincoln Drive.

The feeling of hope for an incoming Biden administration gave way to dread, and a sudden acknowledgment that, without justice for the events of that day and the crimes leading up to it, the next four years would be but a brief reprieve from yet another attempt by Donald Trump to create an American autocracy.

I completed this cutout called “Shears 1/6/21″ about a week later and filed it away with the rest of my cut paper contemplations, only to be abruptly reminded of it last week. Between the unmitigated disaster of Biden’s debate performance and the recent Supreme Court ruling that effectively guarantees Trump’s immunity from facing charges for inciting the insurrection, I fear we have come to the fateful moment where, without immediate intervention, America’s future hangs in the balance.

Watching the debate, I couldn’t help but put myself in the shoes of my nephew, who will be able to vote in his first presidential election this November. Disaffected and weary of the political arena, I can imagine how he will interpret the glib edited clips of a lost, flailing Biden and a rabid, mendacious Trump.

Then I imagine the throngs of apolitical voters who will either not vote at all or vote for a third-party candidate out of spite, recalcitrance, or ignorance. It’s up to Democrats to persuade those open-minded, independent, and noncommitted voters to join us. It’s only by working together that we can beat back Trump.

The GOP, under Trump’s thrall for nearly a decade, has long urged us to disbelieve our lying eyes when it comes to the prevarication, bigotry, and dictatorial bent of the party’s preferred candidate.

Democrats who argue that we should disregard Joe Biden’s debate performance are using a similar playbook. The president, who may still be our best hope of beating Trump, must continue to answer legitimate questions about his fitness for office. To suggest otherwise insults nonpartisans, and is likely to drive them away.

I will do anything in my power to help defeat Trump. An inkling of hope remains, but I am preparing for the worst.

I tell my wife, “We survived four years of Trump before, we can do it again.” Of course, that was before the specter of antisemitism — always a harbinger of democratic decline — roared to the forefront on the far left and appeared as a mirror image of its far right counterpart.

As an inherited reflex imparted by my Yiddish-speaking ancestors, I find myself resorting to gallows humor. So, I hope this piece evokes a chuckle or a smirk as we wait for what happens next.

As Laurie Anderson puts it in her song “Freefall”: “We’re going down to the bottom/All the way to the bottom/We get turned around.”

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