If you've ever been to the Grand Canyon, you've seen what this country's greatest natural divide looks like up close. It's 18 miles across, a mile deep and 277 miles long. The state of Rhode Island could fit inside that hole.
It's also a fitting metaphor for the political divide that besets our nation. Never before in modern history have the two sides been further apart, speaking different languages from opposite cliffs staring into the void.
The whole country looks to be on the verge of falling in.
I never have considered myself an alarmist but I am deeply alarmed at what is shaping up to be terrible confrontation between the warring parties next year. They are screaming separate versions of reality at us and share no common ground at all -- just that giant hole.
The Republicans have calcified around Trump's myth that the election was stolen from him. He is inciting officials all over the country to put new rules in place and elect new representatives with the open intent to steal power back.
The Democrats consider the Jan. 6th riot at the Capitol to have been an insurrection intended to subvert our democracy and override the will of the voters.
All a simple journalist like me can do is state the obvious: Trump's supporters are wrong; Biden won fair and square and did not steal the election. Trump is the one who tried to steal the election. And the Democrats are correct that the groundwork Republicans are laying represents an unprecedented threat to our democracy.
These are objective opinions backed by provable facts.
But an objective journalist might as well be yelling into a void as great as the Grand Canyon in the current political environment. If I simply speak the truth, I am painted as a partisan, which I most definitively am not.
We are in trouble.
Nate Silver's 538 polling site says Republicans are "on track to take back the House in 2022," based on a big gerrymandering advantage over Democrats.
And in the Senate the GOP needs to only flip one seat, which is highly possible.
Biden would still be President, of course, but he would then face a completely hostile Congress that would make any legislative progress on the actual problems facing us impossible. No more stimulus checks, progress on climate change, help for our immigration crisis, a fighting shot at taxing the rich and closing the wealth gap, countering racism, ending hate crimes, giving hope and comfort to the poor or the outcasts.
No more hope for change. Rather a return to the hateful, spiteful politics of resentment of the Trump era.
So, assuming the Republicans win next year, both parties would next gear up for the 2024 Presidential race. By all measures, Biden should win re-election by a safe margin if the economy is strong, the pandemic ends, and no new disaster reshuffles the political deck.
But those are big ifs and also, Biden will turn 81 in 2024. He will have to stay healthy and maintain a high favorable rating, which he currently possesses, to win re-election.
Who knows what the mess in Congress will look like by then.
It took the Colorado River 6 million years to carve out the Grand Canyon. But it may run dry before we have a solution to the political drought plaguing our nation this year, next year, and beyond.
***
My recent skirmish with Facebook over not being able to access my essays or comments ended when I had exhausted every suggestion their support team and my Facebook friends had given me.
I'd updated all the apps, switched browsers, cleared caches, cleaned the Mac, started and restarted everything, consumed extra cups of coffee, and generally created what one of my ex's would call a psychodrama.
That's not like me. I'm not given to panic attacks. But it taught me a lesson -- that I have become dependent on this social network to an extraordinary degree.
In the end, one simple step fixed everything. I gave Facebook access to my geo-location on my phone. Immediately that location popped up on my laptop page as well and I could suddenly see all the "lost" posts.
I wish I had known just how badly Facebook wanted to know where I was coming from. Then again, why didn't they just read my posts?
I know, I know. There is no "they" there, just an algorithm.
***
The news:
* Rejecting Biden’s Win, Rising Republicans Attack Legitimacy of Elections -- The next generation of aspiring G.O.P. congressional leaders has aggressively pushed Donald Trump’s false fraud claims, raising the prospect that the results of elections will continue to be challenged through 2024. (NYT)
* Capitol Police had intelligence about invasion weeks before riot, Senate probe finds -- The findings represent the most detailed — and bipartisan — public account to date of the security failures that led to the Jan. 6 riot. It comes as Congress is debating legislation to fund safety improvements at the Capitol (WP)
* 'Bring Your Guns': Probe Uncovers More Alarming Intelligence Before The Capitol Riot (NPR)
* In Arizona 2020 Election Review, Risks for Republicans, and Democracy -- Experts call it a circus. Polls say it will hurt the G.O.P. in 2022. But Republicans are on board in Arizona and elsewhere, despite warnings of lasting damage to the political system. (NYT)
* W.H.O. Calls for End to ‘Two-Track Pandemic’ Response -- Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director general of the World Health Organization, said that inequitable vaccine distribution has allowed coronavirus deaths to rise in low-income countries with less access, despite wider global declines. (AP)
* Wealth Gap Likely to Widen as Major Economies Power Recovery, World Bank Says (WSJ)
* Canada to move against far-right groups after Muslim family attack (Reuters)
* After six months of Democratic control in Washington, the party’s progressive wing is growing increasingly restless as campaign promises go undone — blocked not only by Republican obstruction, but also by Democrats’ inability to unite fully around priorities. “There’s a lot of anxiety,” said Rep. Ro Khanna. “It’s a question really for President Biden: What kind of president does he want to be?” [AP]
* FBI-controlled app ensnares scores of alleged criminals in global police sting (WP)
* Supreme Court Rules Against Immigrants Seeking Green Cards -- The justices said immigrants with “temporary protected status” who entered the country without authorization may not apply for lawful permanent residency. (NYT)
* G-7 leaders face pressure to aid poor countries grappling with climate change (WP)
* For a network of social media influencers, speaking out against vaccines, including the coronavirus shots, isn't just a personal crusade. It's also a profitable business. Find out how they are cashing in from spreading fears. [HuffPost]
* Spate of Mass Shootings Is Among Worst in U.S. History (WSJ)
* Companies that have lobbied Gavin Newsom, like PG&E and Kaiser Permanente, have also given tens of thousands of dollars to his wife’s nonprofit. (Sacramento Bee)
* As other states make abortion more restrictive, California is moving to make it free for more people. (Kaiser Health News)
* Job Openings Reached Record Level This Spring (WSJ)
* Cuomo’s administration contends with investigative scrutiny on multiple fronts (WP)
* Telegraph and Mescal Wildfires Force Hundreds of Evacuations -- Two wildfires, less than 50 miles away from each other, have burned tens of thousands of acres east of Phoenix as of Monday morning. (AP, Storyful)
* An annular solar eclipse, also known as a “ring of fire” eclipse, will occur on June 10. People in the far north will get to see the whole spectacle, but some other locations will be able to see a partial solar eclipse. [HuffPost]
* A team of engineers is trying to stop the Golden Gate Bridge from “humming.” (San Francisco Chronicle)
* Dozens of websites went down briefly around the globe Tuesday, including CNN, The New York Times and Britain’s government home page, after an outage at the cloud computing service Fastly, illustrating how vital a small number of behind-the-scenes companies have become to running the Internet. (AP)
* Switzerland to vote on synthetic pesticides ban -- It could become the first European country to ban artificial pesticides in a June 13 referendum. (Reuters)
* Scientists confirm discovery of Australia's largest dinosaur, two stories tall and a basketball court long. (CNN)
* A Herd of Wild Elephants Wandering Across China Captivates Millions (WSJ)
* 'Unprecedented rate of cancer' in sea lions -- Chemical dumping in Californian waters has sparked the highest prevalence of cancer in any mammal, including humans. (Reuters)
* The joy of Crossing Paths With Strangers (The New Yorker)
* "I found the Bay Area dock where Otis Redding wrote his final song" -- Waldo Point Harbor, Sausalito. (Don Gentile/SFGate)
* Report: Bananas Still Most Popular Fruit For Pretending To Receive Phone Call (The Onion)
***
I'll be sittin' when the evenin' comes
Watching the ships roll in
Then I watch 'em roll away again, yeah
I'm sittin' on the dock of the bay
Watchin' the tide roll away, ooh
I'm just sittin' on the dock of the bay
Wastin' time
Headed for the Frisco Bay
'Cause I've had nothin' to live for
It look like nothin's gonna come my way
So I'm just gon' sittin' on the dock of the bay
Watchin' the tide roll away, ooh
I'm sittin' on the dock of the bay, wastin' time
Everything, still remains the same
I can't do what ten people tell me to do
So I guess I'll remain the same, yes
And this loneliness won't leave me alone, listen
Two thousand miles, I roam
Just to make this dock my home
Now I'm just gon' sit, at the dock of the bay
Watchin' the tide roll away, ooh yeah
Sittin' on the dock of the bay
Wastin' time
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