I did not want to write a blog post for today. I did not want to blog on Maundy Thursday.

Maundy Thursday is a day to ponder Christ’s Last Supper with His disciples. It is a day to remember Christ’s arrest and his betrayal at the hands of His disciples. It is a day to anticipate His brutal treatment and hideous crucifixion on the cross that we will remember tomorrow.

Maundy Thursday is a day to slow down and consider the sacrifice Jesus Christ made for each of us. The horrors He endured for us on “Good Friday” should weigh heavily on our hearts and minds today, tomorrow, and Saturday as we dare not let the joy of Easter Sunday creep into our thoughts yet.

I did not want to blog today. I did not want to rant and rave. I did not want to call out my fellow Americans for blindly following Donald Trump. I did not want to get all worked up and end up with a headache or high blood pressure or a stomach ulcer.

So that’s not what I’m going to blog about today. Instead, I am writing about some of my very deep concerns and try to put the pieces together of how in the world America got to this place of distrust and disagreement.

I never anticipated that writing my little blog this is supposed to be about my writing, my reading, and my love of studying history was going to consume all my time in 2025 or that a US President’s abuse of power would come to be all I can even think about.

I never thought I would be able to truly understand what happened in Germany in the 1930s, but I now have a crystal-clear understanding. It only takes an extreme level of evil in a handful of people and the brainwashing of enough of the population.

It comes on slowly.

Each thing that is said or done sounds bad when you see that one thing in isolation.

You convince yourself that good people will prevail.

Something else is said or done, and you start to realize that “good people” are believing the lies.

You eventually realize that too many of  the “good people” and “good Christians” in particular aren’t who you thought they were.

You realize that too many of the white people in America have a deep-seated prejudice against all the non-white people.

You realize that the white people in America who fly the Confederate flag in their yard or put a Confederate flag sticker on their pick-up truck aren’t just stuck in the past. They aren’t just showing their pride that one of their ancestors fought on the wrong side in the American Civil War. No. They hate black people. They don’t just hate black people… they wish them harm. If this is not how they really feel, they need to realize that’s the impression they are giving to black people and people who think racial prejudices are a bad thing.

You realize that too many of the professing Christians have completely pushed aside the teachings of Jesus and have put a political leader above Christ and the good of the whole. You start hearing them say they truly believe that Trump was chosen and sent by God to save our country.

They hijack the American flag as theirs and theirs alone, along with the color red which used to be my favorite color. Now I’m afraid to wear red for fear someone will assume I’m a Republican.

You realize you cannot reason with the people who support the President of the United States. You cannot have a civil conversation with them. You can find no common ground with them because their world view is something you can’t comprehend.

This is not only tearing our country apart. It is tearing families apart.

“As a lifelong Presbyterian, I was taught that one should always strive to agreeably disagree”… to respect others’ points of view… to be able to calmly discuss our differences. Although we may not convince the other person to see things our way and they may not convince me to see things their way, the two of us should respect each other and in the end agree that we see things differently but we will still be friends.

The prejudices and hate were already there, but it became common during the 2016 presidential campaign that family gatherings for holidays or family birthdays and anniversaries are strained to the point that such gatherings only leave people with a sense of dread because they know there is always at least one person in the family who feels compelled to bring up politics at the table even though they know everyone in the group does not agree with them.

It seems to always be the family member with the most extreme right-wing opinions that will bring it up. They don’t bring it up for discussion. They bring it up to start an argument… an argument no one wins… and eventually everyone goes home and either dreads the next time they have to be together or vows they will just cut themselves off from the relatives they disagree with. It is impossible to find common ground anymore.

One thing we were taught in school about the American Civil War was that it often pitted “brother against brother.” Those words never made any sense to me because I couldn’t imagine being at such deep odds with my brother that we would be on opposing sides in a civil war. How can siblings raised by the same parents under the same roof be at odds over basic tenets of their faith and the basic tenets of the US Constitution?

I can’t believe my country has turned into a nightmare of a place where authoritarian fear-mongering reigns and the US Constitution is trampled every day and no one seems able to stop it.

I can’t believe I live in an America where people defending the US Constitution are openly belittled, made fun of, and shouted down on live TV by people who are willing to defend a US President to the death because their allegiance is to one man and not the US Constitution. I can’t believe it, but I see it every day.

Our “founding fathers” (and founding mothers, who get no credit!) warned us about totalitarianism, kings, and wannabe-kings, but after 249 years we didn’t think it could happen here.

I don’t recognize my country anymore.

As I commented to a blogger friend earlier this week, “I’m at the point now that I watch the world going on around me and on TV as if it’s 2024 and I wonder how they can ignore what is happening in real life. It reminds me of the feeling that one has when a parent dies and as you drive to the funeral home you want to roll down the car window and scream, “Don’t you know my ________ just died? How can you be going around business as usual as if nothing horrible has happened?”

My faith is in God. I’m not afraid to die because I know where my soul is going to spend eternity. I look forward to eternity! It is everything between now and then that I dread.

On the bright side, at least I don’t have to spend Easter with relatives with whom I disagree on politics and religion.

Janet