Most likely you’ll go your way and I’ll go mine

Assuming that I live until Covid-19 goes away and we can return to a semi-normal life, there are 75 million people I don't want to see, know, hear from, hear about, read about, meet, encounter or share space with on this earth. They're the people who voted for Donald Trump for president a second time. 

If that includes my neighbors who flew Trump banners (one is still doing it), so be it. I didn't know them before Trump and I don't want to know them now.

If that includes any of my relatives, I don't need them either. I didn't pick them. They came with the family because somebody married somebody else. That was not my choice.

And if that includes you, I suggest you stay the hell away from me from now until the end of time. I do not want to be your friend, and that's not negotiable.

What happened on January 6 cannot be excused or simply written off as “patriotism” or "free speech" or a matter of political differences. It was open sedition broadcast live in real time on national TV. This rebellion encouraged by Republican politicians and joined by poorly-educated redneck Fox News viewers loyal to a criminal despot opened a gaping wound in America that cannot be easily healed. And the riot may not be over yet.

The fact that so many of these people still support the 45th president tells you all you need to know about our country. A lot of people like to say this is “not who we are,” but they're wrong. We are exactly who we are. That's undeniable.

The same people now say it's time for healing, but they're wrong about that, too. The time for healing has long ago passed. The drama that played out last Wednesday proves it without a doubt.  The time for healing should have followed immediately after Donald Trump’s conviction in his first impeachment trial when he was clearly guilty of a string of high crimes and misdemeanors, but such a conviction didn’t happen. His party’s failure to do its duty only emboldened Trump and his followers and, several months later, led directly to Wednesday’s assault on the U.S. Capitol by people who wanted to overthrow the government, murder the Speaker of the House and lynch the vice president.

It's hard to believe I even typed those words, but every one of them is true.

In my mind, it’s too late for healing and there’s no sense denying what this country has become. It all became too real on January 6 as we watched it with our own eyes, and now we fear what might be coming next.

And we still face a pandemic that wants to kill us all.

I could write a lot more about January 6, but most of it has already been said by somebody else, so I'll skip ahead to my primary point, which is this: Someday when this is all over, there's little hope for  normalcy or healing or a return to the good old days. The best we can hope for is co-existence, and when that day comes, I'll be happy to stay on my side of the street if the Trumpaloons will promise to stay on theirs. Bob Dylan once wrote that “most likely you’ll go your way and I’ll go mine,” and I’ve got 75 million reasons to believe that's true.