We’re Not In Kansas Anymore.

We’re ‘on the road again’ and it’s a VERY bumpy ride.

Boy, has this place changed, Toto! These days America seems as unfamiliar as Oz — and just as surreal. We’ve seen characters with no brain, heart or courage in abundance but enough about politics. We’ve certainly been in twisty, scary situations before. In fact, history is full of times the red, white and blue was as divided as the Hatfields and McCoys, complete with messy family food fights. This time, though, the food is too expensive to throw around and the mess has invaded almost every portion of society.

It’s been said the crazy that began with a gilded escalator didn’t divide America – it revealed it. Racism, greed and xenophobia are hardly new; they’ve just become more butt naked than we’ve ever seen them. And hate and resentment only grows larger. Did we think political paranoia left the building when Joe McCarthy did? Ha! We might have been a teeny bit convinced that we made big time improvements in womens’ rights and sexual choice tolerance, but apparently not enough. When the highest court in the land tote their own biases, political leanings and religious beliefs into their decision making, we can’t hold anything as permanent.

Now, ‘fear of the ‘other’ is stoked daily, as you wait. ICE has become the Gestapo of choice and ‘the masked man’ is hardly a hero Lone Ranger. Thugs, mercenaries, men with simmering grudges roam the streets whisking students, kids, mothers into unmarked vans, some never to be seen again. Though every culture has gone through their own purgatory of prejudice and alienation when they arrive on our shores, today that Lady in the Harbor, hides her face in shame.

Everything about America has been big – buildings, landscapes, cars, business – and dreams. To many now, their dreams are as elusive as that Yellow Brick Road. Few things in life are linear and history isn’t neat. Over the decades we’ve seen slavery, riots, scandals, assassinations, world wars and cold wars. We’ve struggled with healthcare, financial reform, racial strife, taxes and political mayhem. There’s little we haven’t seen. Yet, when elections were over, protests were heard, amendments enacted, we usually returned to business as usual. No matter how politics, cultural roots or societal platforms differed, we united as AMERICA, not a polarized land of misfit toys. We didn’t dread sitting with one another on Thanksgiving because the political divide was hotter than the turkey!

So, here we are, poised on the brink in an encore of dysfunction, retribution and chaos. We’ve already seen this movie and know what awaits at the end of this Yellow Brick Road. Farmers and consumers alike are already at the mercy of tariff wars, hoping to be bailed out again by the American taxpayer for greed their cattle and soybeans pay the price for. Automation and AI, not ‘the other’, changes the business landscape, yet mass deportations tosses out refugees who’ve done the harvest work, the building and gardening, jobs Americans pass by. Thomas Jefferson’s media, voice of the people, has become a hated target for speaking truth to power. Both entities and individuals have already been put on notice for their ‘fake news’ and been called ‘piggy’ and ‘nasty’ women. Though coal will never again be king, workers are ripe for black lung again as protections have been stripped away. So much of the country remains in their happy myths where climate is not rapidly changing our world as we know it. All the while, vile tweets have replaced fireside chats disguised as ‘TRUTH’.

Those who lived through September 11, our 21st century Pearl Harbor, remember how we walked as one through the aftermath. We gained strength from national pride and a flag that somehow survived the rubble. That flag has now been co-opted by those who claim to be the only ‘patriots’ while toting AR-15s to protect themselves against ‘the other’ half of America. A historical part of the White House itself, has been torn down to make way for a glitzy, Marie Antoinette ballroom funded by billionaire bros who’ve staked our government.

In the worst of times, swamp creatures proliferate. The Birther Movement and Tea Party, wrapped in red, white and blue, were a neat smokescreen for racism inflamed by the election of America’s first black president. How DARE we? That should have been a Paul Revere warning of unthinkable things to come. In bizarro Oz, there’s no middle ground. If we didn’t get it before, the pseudo orange Wizard laid it out nice and neat on his first Inauguration Day. In a soap opera speech called ‘American Carnage’, fiery rhetoric painted a picture of hellfire scented with the rotted smell of fear of the ‘other’. What’s followed since has been scarily reminiscent of a hellish pestilence that infected a country across the pond 50 years ago.

We’ve divided into cultural camps; true patriots or ‘elites’, snowflakes or deplorables, racists or bleeding hearts. Yoo hoo – newsflash! No matter how anyone insists they are the ‘Real’ Americans, unless you or your ancestors were those dumped onto bleak reservations — you’re not. If the original native peoples erected a wall at Jamestown or Plymouth Rock to keep out pesky immigrants, there might not have been an America, folks! Then again, seeing how we dissed the people who took US in, maybe squatters rights work after all.

People who voted for another go-round of this morality play, claimed it was ‘the economy, stupid.’ Yet, said economy is in a good place, thanks to the upward trajectory of the current administration. Jobs and the stock market, ditto. But our national soul? Not so much. While half of us cheer that we’ve ‘saved America’, the rest of us shudder, afraid of what’s to come. Instead of reinstating American pride, hope and energy, we are once again America Alone. We left our shining Emerald City behind us. Will it take a another war or 9/11 catastrophe, here or abroad, to unite us once again? To find common ground? To find ourselves? I surely hope not.

Do I understand why some thinking people, who felt alienated, invisible, anxious and ignored, voted against the status quo? I do. The idea that someone might shake things up may have sounded cool, but living now in all the breakage, maybe electing the Terminator was not the best idea. Believing corruption will repair corruption is like thinking a rooster can bring Feng Shui Zen to a hen house. Not happening. Having observed deception, tweet, nepotism and chaos, a ‘politically incorrect’ tan suit hardly seems a presidency’s biggest problem, right? People need authentic facts, not alternative ones. They need a leader who reads and listens, respects all people, not just bullies, dictators, a gullible base, and sycophantic TV networks. People need to care that their leader tells the truth and to be able to call him on it when he doesn’t because he works – for US.

Acting presidential doesn’t mean clownish strutting. It doesn’t mean attacking every government institution from Congress and the DOJ to NATO, the FBI and the
United Nations. When the KKK endorses a president, hello, it’s not a compliment, folks! Painting Hispanics as murderers and rapists and Muslims as hell bent to kill us speaks anything but liberty and justice for all. These are dark times. Our rights, medical protections, educational visions are all disappearing like quicksand from day to day. It’s hard to believe we’ve been through worse – but we have. We have to believe that our great America is more Statue of Liberty than felonous carny barker! Though we may not have voted for an insecure, snake oil Wizard, we have to fight for the bigger picture of who WE are. And we need to make sure that the next inhabitant of the Oval comes with a heart, brain and courage built in.

As we survey a morally bankrupt clown show, complete with a cabinet of flying monkeys, we need to believe in OUR vision of America. We, not a marketing slogan, can truly make America great – smarter, kinder and wiser. It won’t be easy but we can and will survive the current crises of morality and spirit. Just like Dorothy and her merry band of cohorts, we won’t need the validation of an aged, egotistical wizard to remember our way. We just need to trust in our own power, talents and goodness. So, hold on to your ruby slippers, people. As Glinda the Good Witch said, “You are capable of more than you know.”

And we are.

(Note: The original cherished story of Wizard of Oz was written in the 1890’s by political reporter, L Frank Baum, which is in itself kind of funny. It wasn’t until 1964 that scholars realized the book really was an allegory on American politics, Wall Street, farmers, factory workers, and its fiscal situation in the 19th century.)