Halloween has always been my favorite holiday. I loved putting up twinkling bats and
watching midnight monster-chiller-horror movies.
Not this year.
اضافة اعلان
The world is too
scary. Politics is too creepy. Horror is too real.
When I was a
child, on October 31, my older brother would put on a vinyl LP of Mussorgsky’s
“Night on Bald Mountain” that he had carefully cleaned. The eerie music was
used by Walt Disney in the segment of his animated masterpiece “Fantasia” about
the surreal celebration of evil during the night of the witches’ Sabbath.
Chernabog, the
lord of evil and death, wrapped in a dark cape, stands atop a jagged peak,
summoning ghosts, witches and vampires to swirl out of the mountain and pay
homage. I was so relieved when, at dawn, church bells rang and drove them off.
But now the bad
spirits are lurking all around us. They will not be driven off.
America seems
haunted by random violence and casual cruelty every day. In New York, subway
riders getting pushed onto the tracks and innocent bystanders being shot.
Officials across the country face kidnapping plots, armed visits to their
homes, assaults and death threats. No place seems safe, from parks to schools
to the supposedly impregnable, guarded Capitol and homes of the wealthy and
well known.
In some states,
women — and girls — seeking abortions are treated as criminals. In Uvalde,
Texas, terrified children frantically calling the police are slaughtered by a
teenage psychopath with an AR-15-style rifle as 376 police officers lingered in
and around the elementary school waiting for … what?
On Friday, The New
York Post broke the news that someone I know, Sarah Feinberg, a former Obama
official and former New York City Transit president, was sucker-punched in the
face in Chelsea by someone walking by in the bike lane.
Now comes news of
a maniac breaking into a house in the middle of the night, bludgeoning an
82-year-old man in the head with a hammer while demanding to know where his
famous wife was. Perfect Halloween movie fare. Except it actually happened.
America seems haunted by random violence and casual cruelty every day. In New York, subway riders getting pushed onto the tracks and innocent bystanders being shot.
One of the most
macabre stories to come out of the January 6 attack on the Capitol and
democracy, ginned up by Donald Trump, was when the mob roamed the halls,
pounding the speaker’s door with bloodcurdling taunts of “Where’s Nancy?”
Speaker Pelosi was
not there, thank God. She was huddling with other top officials in a secure
bunker, placing call after call for help that was slow to arrive.
Luckily, she was
safe, in D.C. with her security detail, when a man broke into her Pacific
Heights home in San Francisco early Friday morning. He smashed the patio glass
door and attacked her husband, who struggled with the attacker for control of a
hammer. In a tingly echo of January 6, the man shouted at Paul Pelosi, “Where
is Nancy? Where is Nancy?” When police arrived, the man said he was “waiting
for Nancy”.
Paul Pelosi, a
genial investor who likes to star in amateur musicals and who has been married
to Nancy for 59 years, called 911, the new yorkTimes reported, bringing police
to his home and potentially saving his life. He was hit several times on his
hands and head with the hammer and was taken to the hospital for surgery for a
skull fracture and is expected to recover.
The police said
the intruder was David DePape, a 42-year-old from Berkeley, California. CNN
reported that DePape’s relatives confirmed that a Facebook account spewing
Trumpian conspiracies on topics ranging from climate change to COVID was his.
In his posts, he cast doubt on the validity of the 2020 election — sharing
pillow pusher and Trump lickspittle Mike Lindell’s absurd videos. And he
defended the Trump rioters who stormed the Capitol.
With his usual
level of class, Donald Trump put out a message of sympathy to the family of Jerry
Lee Lewis, “the Killer” of rock ’n’ roll, who died Friday at age 87, but said
nothing all day about the Pelosi family.
On Twitter, Rep.
Adam Kinzinger of Illinois urged GOP candidates and elected officials to speak
out against the “horrific” attack. He probably did not have in mind the sort of
speaking out that Gov. Glenn Youngkin of Virginia did. Youngkin made a joke of
the assassination attempt: “There’s no room for violence anywhere, but we’re
going to send her back to be with him in California.”
Democrats had a
nice run, on climate change and gun legislation, and enjoyed some backlash to
the Dark Prince of the Supreme Court, Samuel Alito. Now Republicans seem set to
win back the House, and maybe the Senate, with a range of incompetent and
hypocritical candidates.
“I cannot believe
anybody would vote for these people,” Pelosi told the new york Times’ Carl
Hulse on a fundraising swing.
But a feral mood has taken
hold. If you think Washington is monstrous now, just wait.
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