“Let us march on ballot boxes, until we send to our city councils, state legislatures, and the United States Congress men who will not fear to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with their God.” Martin Luther King, Jr., March 25, 1965
Today my wife and I made an urban hike from our house to Franceschi Park. I did this four-mile round trip a week or so ago and wanted Terry to see it. Turns out that she had never been to Franceschi Park, incredible news to me as most Santa Barbara natives have visited FP at least once. We set off up Garcia Road. The sky was streaked with clouds but the islands were visible in the channel. I couldn’t remember the last time we had taken a walk, just the two of us. Terry turns 60 in March of this year; in November we will celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary. As with most marriages, ours hit a few bumps in the road, rocky patches, but we managed to find a way through and now find ourselves in a good place, more tolerant of one another, happy in our little bungalow. Funny how we can find ourselves content in a world that my incessant social media news feed portrays as falling apart. Terry, as ever, is the optimistic one. While I’m happy enough on a personal level, I find myself more and more resigned to the real possibility that the United States is headed for autocratic rule.
We took a rest on the low wall where Garcia Road meets Alameda Padre Serra then continued on our way, pausing only to admire a stately house or the vibrant colors in a beautifully landscaped yard, the rough texture of a sandstone wall. Traffic was sparse and it was quiet enough to hear the shriek of a turkey vulture as it floated above the Santa Barbara Bowl. Terry had her earbuds in and was listening to music, which she claimed she needed for motivation. We cut through Sylvan Park, green after the heavy rain in December. A young couple was sitting on a bench, but other than them nobody else was around. On Dover Hill Road Terry stopped and lay on the road, protesting that she couldn’t go on. I knew she was being dramatic and waited for her to get on her feet. We climbed the stone stairs between two elegant residences and reached the lower section of the park. The foliage was green and hearty, proof of the restorative power of six inches of rain. The cacti looked refreshed. We could see some of our city’s landmarks, including the County Courthouse, the spire of the Arlington Theater, the Granada Building, and Peabody Stadium. As it has since I was a teenager, the contrast of trees and sky, white stucco and red tile roofs, and the blue of the Pacific Ocean filled me with happiness. When I was in high school my friend David and I spent a fair amount of hours in Franceschi Park, usually stoned to the gills on weed. It was the late 70’s, after all.
Walking puts me in a ruminating frame of mind, and I found myself thinking, not about the peace of the moment, the beautiful scenery, but about something the Nigerian writer Wole Soyinka said in an interview I watched on YouTube. Soyinka was talking about the endemic, crippling corruption in his native country, describing it as an endless cycle of rogues and robbers. Naturally, I thought of my country and the threat posed by Donald J. Trump and the GOP. Unless Trump chokes on a drumstick or is indicted, I expect him to run for president in 2024. Were he to win, I think he would try to do what autocrats always do: consolidate as much power as possible, including over the armed forces. Because Trump is a spiteful and vindictive man, it’s likely he would attempt to use the power of the federal government to go after people who refused to go along with his coup attempt. He would appoint loyalist lackeys in key agency roles in order to hollow the agencies out even further than they already are. He would continue to load the federal judiciary with right-wing activist judges. Cronyism and grifting would be rampant. Loyalty tests for members of the GOP would become ever more stringent. I think we would also witness more spectacles of white supremacy. Trump would find new enemies to blame things on, fresh scapegoats.
Of late I’ve heard Trump declare, echoing Joseph Stalin, by the way, that who counts the votes is more important than who casts the votes. Such statements should put all citizens on alert. Here I’m going to plug an organization called Free Speech for People, which is doing important advocacy work around elections as well as barring January 6 insurrectionists from holding public office. Please check out: https://freespeechforpeople.org/one-year-after-january-6th-attack-on-the-us-capitol-public-interest-groups-launch-campaign-to-bar-insurrectionists-from-the-ballot/
The view from Franceschi Park was stunning, as always.
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