from the patio of our airbnb, it all looked tiny. lake powell, framed by red rock, was a stunning blue under an equally stunning blue sky. the vista was beautiful. in the aperture of my phone’s camera, sans telephoto help – it was sooo small.

but the fact of the matter is that it wasn’t small at all. it was simply a matter of perspective. these sculptured vistas were a very long way below us – our elevation was well above the lake level canyons…perhaps even 1000 feet. it still never failed to amaze me as i gazed at it all, 360 degrees of amazing, relishing it at each point in the days we were there. it felt as if we had the advantage of a soaring eagle, looking down on this utterly gorgeous view.

such vastness was overwhelming. it was perspective-arranging. that which looked tiny was indeed of gigantic proportion.

and, in the way of perspective, i am just now beginning to understand something else.

in regard to the current presidential election – i think that i have been pushing back on the possibility, refusing to believe, hoping against hope – in terms of voters supporting the maga candidate and the maga agenda – that people were just ill-informed, not fact-checking, not paying attention. i was thinking that watching propaganda tv was smearing this vitriol into their brains, gaslighting them, and that – in the limited access they have chosen – they did not know better than to question it. i was thinking that reading, viewing, listening to the narrow, incomplete, customized rhetoric of maga tv/media was normalizing this candidate’s incapacity to be president, was eliminating details and that – were people to actually be cognizant of his unfit-ness, of these details – they would think differently.

i suppose – in some cases of maga supporters – that could be true. that that hateful bandwagon’s lure makes one indiscriminate, makes one not want to question or understand or find the truth. instead, it makes one loud, stubbornly clinging, ill-advised, completely deaf to reality, ignoring danger as if it didn’t exist.

and, in the other cases, i suddenly – and very sadly – had a moment of enlightenment, a perspective shift. and i am taking back the grace i had granted.

i realized that these people scroll just like me, they listen and read and, thus, they completely understand this candidate’s hate-mongering, the maga intentions, the efforts to thwart freedoms and dehumanize women, LGBTQ, races other than white.

i realized that they WANT these agendas, they WISH for nationalism, they BELIEVE that this candidate is their savior and that his racist, misogynistic, prejudiced, crass thinking, words and actions are entertaining and they AGREE with him.

i realized that they LIKE the thought of an america led by a pitiful human who pushes immigrants under, who demeans democracy, who touts authoritarianism, who dreams of power, who spews vulgarity.

i realized his sexual abuse of women, his hateful promises of mass deportation, his incitement of insurrection, his undeterred, adoring alliances with dictators, his felony convictions MEAN NOTHING to them.

i realized that they LIKE this grotesque and venomous character, this unending vortex of chaos and ugliness.

and here i was thinking maybe they just needed more information or access to research, to ask questions, to seek the truth, to consider their legacy, to hold to democracy.

here i was thinking that maybe another perspective might help them see, might help them discern, might help them find their moral compass.

here i was thinking that they weren’t hearing the whole story, that they weren’t informed, that they weren’t hearing what this candidate was saying, that they didn’t know what the maga agenda really was, that they had no idea what destruction project 2025 would inflict on this country.

here i was thinking it was a lack of awareness, a misunderstanding, not their fault.

i was wrong.

entirely wrong.

they WANT this.

the vista in the lake powell desert shifted when i realized that our vastly increased elevation played a part in my perspective. it recaptured the immensity that viewing from lake level afforded it.

the election shifted when i realized that this is – truly – what these maga people WANT. that i live in a country where people – half the populace – WANT the despicably ugly.

and that is the nadir of it all. the absolute lowest point that eclipses all other low points. rock bottom. tragic.

i have never felt such pure disappointment in humanity.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this D.R.THURSDAY

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