I’ve been comparing today’s America with that old “Idiocracy” movie, where the people have become so degenerate and dumb that a normal time traveler is hailed as a genius. But there’s an even more realistic depiction – an episode in The Simpsons titled “Bart to the Future.”
It was aired in the year 2000 and it focused on the disastrous after-effects of a Donald Trump presidency.
That’s how low American punditry has sunk – to the level of a TV comic strip.
Not one “serious” pundit predicted Trump’s triumph in the Republican primaries. It seems that it’s up to the cartoonists and the comics to tell us what’s really going on in this crazy country.
Does that mean I think Trump will be elected President?
Of course not.
But I didn’t think he would win the Republican nomination either. So I could be in for another unpleasant surprise.
God forbid.
Even a cartoonist can tell what such a presidency would mean. In the Simpsons episode, Lisa becomes America’s first female President and inherits a bankrupt nation from ex-President Trump.
I’m sure that’s exactly what would happen if Trump ever gets his hands on America’s purse strings. And that’s just a small part of the damage he would inflict as President.
The damage to American society – and to the free world – would be irreparable. Oppression, tyranny, injustice, racial hatred, war and poverty would be his legacy.
And, as the English statesman Edmund Burke observed so long ago, all that’s needed for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing.
If ever there was a time for decent Americans to take a stand that time is now.
The very least we can do – must do – is vote.
