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“Wormwood” is a bitter, aromatic plant, but the word is used more broadly to connote “something bitter, or extremely unpleasant.” Hamlet angrily utters “wormwood” to express his bitterness over his mother’s “o’erhasty marriage” to his father’s fratricidal brother – the “smiling damned villain,” Claudius.

The articles in this collection originally appeared in Politics: North Carolina and The Pilot, an award-winning, regional biweekly newspaper from December 2017 to the present. They reflect bitterness with the rise and coronation of Trump and Trumpism, a phenomenon that has exposed “something rotten in the state of America.” This wormwood didn’t begin with Trump. The lies, hypocrisy, racism, sexism, and the simmering violence have always lurked in the subsoil of right-wing extremism. This toxic plant took firm root in the hostility towards Obama and his administration, but it has blossomed in the past five years, nourished by the steady supply of rhetorical manure produced by the swaggering narcissistic sociopath who became our 45th president.

The articles themselves fall into a number of often overlapping categories:

·         Articles that assail the cowardice, mendacity, duplicity, corruption, incompetence, and destruction of norms demonstrated by state and national Republicans.

·         Articles that consider how “dark money” has corrupted our system and made politicians servants to their corporate owners.

·         Articles that look at systemic racism from the days of Reconstruction, the rise of the KKK and subsequent Jim Crow laws, through the simmering racism that has festered since the enactment of the Civil Rights laws of the 1960s. These articles review how racism has presented itself in the form of voter suppression laws, racially motivated gerrymandering, persistent killing of unarmed black men and women by protected white males and rogue white police officers.

·         Articles that address the historically harsh manner in which America has treated immigrants, from those reaching our shores in the 19th and early 20th centuries to the present cruel and bigoted rejection of Muslims, people from Africa, and people from Mexico and Central America.

·         Articles that denounce politicized religious organizations, like select groups of Evangelicals who have raised millions of tax-free dollars while shilling for, and embracing, a corrupt president; or, articles that denounce Catholic priests who have preyed on innocent children for generations, often under the protection of bishops who covered their crimes.

·         Articles that condemn authoritarian behavior by powerful corporate and political interests at all levels of officialdom, routinely stifling dissent and prosecuting whistle blowers.

·         Articles that cast a cold eye on the “paranoid style” of right-wing media figures like Rush Limbaugh, as well as Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, and other propagandists in the Murdoch empire who pander to Trump and routinely pit Americans against each other in their trademark sneering and contemptuous manner.

·         Articles that highlight examples of courage and decency in private and public life, from my family war hero Sergeant Frank Shaw, to Adam Schiff, John Lewis, Admiral William McCraven, and Mitt Romney.

·         Articles that encourage critical thinking and warn against anti-intellectualism and tribalism by analyzing current problems in the context of historical precedents, and by weighing causes as well as effects in our present crises.

My right-wing readers, especially those of the “My America Right or Wrong” clique have referred to me as an America-hating, Marxist or Socialist, urging me in the reductive bromides of the ‘60s to “Love America or Leave It.” They are demonstrably wrong. Sadly, there is no arguing with people who embrace absolutist, bumper-slogan attitudes and uncompromising positions against those whose ideas offend them. Any suggestion that people like me still believe in capitalism and patriotism, or are capable of having friendly, constructive conversations with thoughtful conservatives, is beyond their comprehension.

America’s “exceptionalism” is often embraced by them as absolute, with a blind eye to imperfections that warrant attention. I often wonder whether these individuals raised their children in the same uncritical manner they display to their cult leader. Did they somehow sanction little Joey’s or Sally’s Trump-like lies and corruption? His cruel indifference to human suffering? His vulgar grandiosity and appalling arrogance?

 Or were they so easily duped by Trump’s flatulent oratory, his flag hugging and Bible wielding photo ops that they could ignore or forgive his lifelong willingness to lie and cheat? Why is it that even after they learned from his own mouth that he lied to them and everyone about the severity of the corona virus, they still preferred his lies to reality? Even though his lies and dilatory response were responsible for America recording more than twice as many infections and deaths as any other nation on earth, they, his media lackeys, and Republican cowards in congress, gave him a pass.

And then they heeded his final ignominy - his “big lie” about election fraud and his treasonous call to overthrow a separate but equal branch of government. The magnitude of his supporters’ suspension of disbelief can only be rooted in a profoundly mystical gullibility, or cynicism, or both.

America is not now and never has been perfect. Our foundational documents profess to believe that all people are created equal and that we are government of the people, by the people, and for the people. These are admirable, but essentially aspirational, beliefs. We are still striving to actualize these ideals and have made significant progress.  Yet when Republicans in many states and in Congress systematically and aggressively try to deny people of color the right to vote, it is clear that we have a long way to go.

It is essential to be critical of our country’s failures – so we can repair them. We do not drive our cars with flat tires. We do not let our burning homes be consumed in flames without calling the fire department. We do not let our loved ones die of disease without calling a doctor. Why would we let a nation in crisis go unattended?

We must be creatively critical about our nation’s flaws in order to correct them, in order to help the nation better achieve the mission stated in the Constitution, namely, to achieve a “more perfect union” – not a perfect union, but a more perfect union. We can do better, and if we are to survive and prosper as a democracy, we must.

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