“I am in blood stepped in so far that should I wade no more, returning were as tedious as go o’er”
(Macbeth Act III Scene IV)
Our public discourse has been degraded recently to the extent that hate crimes find no censure and are committed with no shame, the government does not rise to the defence of the judiciary when they are impugned, and the prospect of a xenophobic misogynistic narcissist in the oval office assumes the tincture of reality.
These are not normal times. This is not business as usual.
But this has been a long time coming. We have endured the right wing media's bilious drip feed of racist insinuations for decades now. Its acid has corroded the rebar of our imagination, has poisoned the well-springs of our inspiration, has drawn in the horizons of our dreams, has filled our thoughts with fits and starts of terror, has limited our aspirations to securing a moment's safety from the monsters that have cavorted across their front pages from one day to the next.
And now we find ourselves at a tipping point. A point of no return. We are now stepped so far into the nightmare concocted for us that we must let it occupy us completely or reject it.
America, this week do not deliver a victory for unsubstantiated conspiracy theory, for prejudice, for spurious, cynical victim-hood. Do not deliver a victory that endorses misogyny and xenophobia, that green-lights hate and intolerance and rape.
Vote for the candidate that, for all her shortcomings, still consents to democratic scrutiny, still exerts herself to formulate and articulate policies, still subjects her ideas to rational debate, still submits her candidacy to the will of the people without histrionics and incredulity at the prospect of being rejected, still believes in the rule of law.
America, you stand at the edge of a precipice. Do not step over it. Do not turn this election into an enabling act.
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