Commentary: Maybe we deserve the despotism and impoverishment created by our egomaniacal leader

We have a president who is little more than a squatter in the White House. It seems irrelevant whether he is moral, whether he is a genius, whether anything he has to say is truthful or not, whether he is insane, whether he is criminal.

These arguments are, to me, not more than distractions from the only thing that matters — he is in perpetual violation of our nation’s founding principles, laws, protocol, civil rights and personal safety.

Our elected officials are the first line of defense, and the Republican Party has entirely avoided its primary responsibility, as defined in The Declaration of Independence, which places the responsibility for ridding government of the threat of despotism on the voters.

The first line of action is arguably the vote, and the vote will only matter if gerrymandering is addressed, if foreign influence is addressed, if the power of big money in the election process is addressed, if we stand by each other, and stand up for our U.S. Constitution and its amendments.

But I would rather assume I can simply and silently go on with my life as though there were no truly dire consequences to what is going on in Washington, D.C.

And then I begin to consider those consequences and potential consequences, and to think about what it says about me to leave it up to others to protect a way of life I take for granted, feel entitled to.

A sense of entitlement is arguably the very thing that defines me as no different at all from the president and his supporters, silent or otherwise.

I can’t abide violence in any form, but so far, we seem to have a compromised but still operable justice system and right to vote. The question is, am I willing to put aside less important matters — things and issues only important to me — and use the tools afforded me by representational government to remove a thoroughly diseased administration and its dangerous head of state from power, to put the needs of the collective ahead of my little affairs?

I don’t have much evidence that I am willing to engage the good fight for anything.

I want. I want an electric car and a new couch.

I want. I want to upgrade my basement to make my house more valuable.

I want. I want a patio in the front yard.

I want. I want a camper and that way cool new make-up for old lady skin like mine.

I want. I want a rain barrel.

I want an endless list of things, and I make these wants more important than, oh, say, the threat of things like racism, nuclear war, a climate that is hostile to my very existence ... in the simple choices I make every day.

Market research suggests you do, too.

Perhaps, then, we deserve despotism and the impoverishment that an egomaniacal despot is hastily visiting upon the majority of a nation — and in the nuclear age, all nations.

Maybe the heroism I so love to watch and applaud in films, only exists there, in my imagination, feeding my imaginary sense of what it means to be an American. I mean, given my choice between watching a love story between a human and a fish in the film “The Shape of Water,” and reviewing The Declaration of Independence and reflecting upon my civic responsibility — well, you no doubt realize by now that I’m the movie-going sort.

My sense of American self is fully imaginary.

Cheryl C. Pace is a custom picture framer, poet and grandmother. She lives in Salt Lake City.