Cleaving

Say that we have cleaved, and you can’t go wrong. Even the word has been cleaved with each meaning, (separating or coming together) derived from a different source. One meaning derives from an old English word meaning to adhere unwaveringly. The other is of Norse origin, to split apart. The result is one of those Janus two-headed words staring off in opposite directions.

Henry the 8th had it both ways. He first cleaved in marriage and then had some wives cleaved by decapitation if they didn’t produce. He gave new meaning to separation anxiety. As a footnote of history let it be known that Anne of Cleves, Henry's 4th wife, did not live up to her name. She died with her head attached forevermore.

It’s come to this…a bifurcated nation with Us, the Good Guys cheering for the demise of MAGA -Them, each watching for the news as it breaks and each off to our respective cable-planets or app to reinforce what we hold to be self-evident.

If Trump was revealed as a double-agent Russian operative on MSNBC and CNN, on Fox they’d be showing a car chase in Wichita. Conversely if Biden lost his way from the Lincoln bedroom to the Oval Office, it would play on a continuous loop on Fox but MSNBC might ignore it.

In reality, the cleaver that divides us cuts three ways, not two. Arguably, the largest segment is neither blue nor red; it is 38% of eligible voters who chose not to participate at all. The tragedy of America is the inability of most people to make a connection between public policy and their own wellbeing. Why else sit it out? Why else vote for the man and party whose mission is to deny basic human services?  

I do believe that we need to separate the shepherds from the sheep in the MAGA movement. The former deserve our scorn; the misled might be brought to new consciousness.

Seems like everyone I know is strategizing how to cleave together with kindred souls as well as in-dwell with artforms that speak to them. Most of all we need to reaffirm the values which are being trampled upon. Never before in my lifetime have the givens of common sense and decency, compassion, and the core precepts of this country been so under siege. I sense a new enlightenment emerging from the threat of this opposing force.