Brecht

This election — so many don't like what it's done to the United States. I'll go further and say I don't like a lot of what's it done to me. It's made me harsh, aggressive, excessively judgmental. It's made me find allies, people of like mind, and has also done the opposite, challenging or breaking complex connections to some who are or were real friends before.

Before what?

When, and if, this is over, and the specter of Donald Trump hopefully dissipates like a nightmare, an episode, say, of "American Horror Story," I hope to grow more kind and to fixate on politics and its polarities less.

Politics brings the urge for certainty out in us, — how can it not, so much being at stake for so many.

I find myself referring to Bertolt Brecht's great poem, "To Posterity." The situation he refers to is much more dire than ours. Donald Trump, asinine, sickening pretender that he is, is not yet remotely on the same page with Brecht's fiend, Adolf Hitler.

Yet Brecht's words have relevance:

For we knew only too well:

Even the hatred of squalor

Makes the brow grow stern.

Even anger against injustice

Makes the voice grow harsh. Alas, we

Who wished to lay the foundations of kindness

Could not ourselves be kind.

But you, when at last it comes to pass

That man can help his fellow man,

Do no judge us

Too harshly.