Celebrate

In just nine weeks, Donald J. Trump will be inaugurated as the 45th President of the United States.

It's an astonishing thing to contemplate.  An embarrassing thing.  But there it is.

Now, I cannot join wholeheartedly with those who regard the results of November 8 as a national disaster.  For me, and for millions of other Americans, disaster of some sort became a foregone conclusion once the two major parties had nominated their candidates.

A lot of us didn't want Mrs. Clinton either.

But there's no getting around the fact that, while Mrs. Clinton would likely have continued, cautiously and gradually, down the path to destruction, Mr. Trump offers us the potential of an express trip to that destination.

It's going to be a long four years.  I hope we survive it.  I can almost hear Bette Davis advising us to fasten our seatbelts.

A lot of people are already mobilizing to oppose the worst of the prospective Trump appointees, and the most destructive of his policies.  We should all consider joining one or another of these groups because the fight is worth fighting.

And organizing - meeting people, finding common ground - will help a lot in two years, when we have a chance to take Congress away from the Republicans and turn Mr. Trump into a premature lame duck.

For those who seriously desire to transform the United States - to make it genuinely great again - the best bet remains, as it has long remained, a third party.

The Democratic Party is a disaster.  Only the Democratic Party could have arranged to lose to Donald Trump.  Only the Democratic Party could have reduced itself to a party of, for and by the urban coastal elites, while letting the rest of the map turn bright red.

The biggest bloc of entirely unrepresented Americans today is - as it has been for the past 36 years - patriotic citizens who are conservative in the old, honorable sense of believing in gradual, evolutionary change - rather than brilliant departures from tradition, with all their unforeseen consequences.

Citizens who share the values of the old Republican Party, before it was taken over by white bigots and evangelical theocrats, are without a home in today's two-party system.  Their former home, the Republican Party, has become a second, more sinister version of the Democratic Party - another coalition of those who place the tribe ahead of the nation.

What America needs is the genuine Republican Party - the party descended from the Federalists of Washington, Adams and Lincoln, and the Whigs of Webster and Clay.  The party of Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Eisenhower, and George H, W. Bush.

But that's a long, complex story - for another time.

What America needs in just under nine weeks is an alternative for those of us who can't bear to sit at home while the Trumpets are dancing the night away at a dozen Inaugural Balls.

Some years ago, when George W. Bush being inaugurated, one of the local Democratic Committees in the Richmond, Virginia, suburbs rented the beautiful old Byrd Theatre for the night of January 20.  That night, they showed two films - The American President and Dave.  Officially, it was a fundraiser and membership drive - but it also gave a lot of folks a chance to escape, for that one night, the horrors that confronted the nation.

And munch some very good popcorn.

I suggest that good Americans all across the country find a way of doing something similar.  Rent a movie screen if you can. Show The American President, or Dave, or Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.  

Or Chaplin's The Great Dictator.

Or Spielberg's Lincoln.

Or gather in someone's house and pop in a DVD of The West Wing, or John Adams.

Or listen to a CD of Hamilton.

Or, if you're younger and more technologically up-to-date than I, do something more savvy.  Stream something.  You'll know.

Have a great time, in congenial company, on January 20.  Get a good night's sleep.

And then, get back to work.