I was thinking I might need to coin a word, only to discover in my Oxford English Dictionary that apocalypticism has long enjoyed a listing. Originally defined as the expectation of Biblical tribulations, this meaning has since been superseded by the ever-expanding universe of potential secular catastrophes. Whether environmental calamities, deficit spending, COVID-19, murder hornets, the Trump presidency, artificial intelligence or social media’s cancel culture, circumstances aren’t predicted to worsen – rather, they are presumed destined for cataclysmic disasters. The American penchant for apocalyptic pessimism infects both the political right and left, as well as the God-fearing and non-believers alike. Chiliastic prognostications fuel the rhetoric of demagogues.

Reportedly, several Dominionists serve in the Trump regime, where they dismiss evidence of ecological damage as irrelevant since mankind’s residency on planet Earth will be short-lived. Shakespeare captured a similar sentiment when he described the world as a stage and all its residents merely players. If the curtain will soon drop on our human performance, why worry about a healthy ecosystem once we’ve made our departure? Despite two millennia of failed end-of-days predictions by self-anointed prophets, it’s puzzling why anyone believes they might have it right this time. There is considerably more reason to think these doomsayers, whether religious or secular, will have it wrong. Albeit, it remains true that “just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you.”

Colorado is not immune from these alarms. Consequently, I was intrigued to read comments last week, co-authored by former Colorado U.S. Sen. Gary Hart and Tim Wirth with others, warning against a hijacking of November’s approaching election. They wrote, “…there is very little confidence that one can rely on this president to take a restrained view of his (emergency) powers as have presidents in the past. Nor can one rely on the current attorney general to curb those powers, including the use of the U.S. military to carry out the president’s orders.” It is somewhat surprising for Hart and Wirth to patrol the political parapets, which raises the genuine chance they are privy to communications among former colleagues that should worry us. A Republican administration that argues every voter should produce identification apparently sees little wrong with dispatching heavily armed troops, uninvited, into American cities to seize protesters while refusing to provide identification of their own. This is bizarre and, yes, alarming.

Arkansas U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton closed a controversial op-ed appearing in the New York Times with the suggestion that, “In normal times, local law enforcement can uphold public order. But in rare moments, like ours today, more is needed even if many politicians prefer to wring their hands while the country burns.” Referencing the 1807 Insurrection Act, he implies that gunning down looters and vandals should not be out of bounds. Attorney General Bill Barr has also embraced his boss’s admonition that “…when the looting starts, the shooting starts” even after the White House backed away from its tweet. Substantially more troubling is the reported intention to deputize right-wing, civilian militias to round up suspected undocumented immigrants exercising “citizen arrest” powers. Graffiti and broken windows will pale next to the vigilante violence proceeding from this ill-conceived policy. American citizens will die.

Conservative writer and former Republican opinion columnist George Will recently warned, “…this nation is in a downward spiral” and then concluded, “Today’s less serious nation is unable to competently combat a pandemic, or even reliably conduct elections.” Mary Trump, the president’s niece, justifies her relentlessly critical memoir exposing industrial-strength family dysfunction with the admonition that, “If he is afforded a second term, it would be the end of American democracy.” No one has been more apocalyptic, however, than FOX News anchor Sean Hannity, who recently cautioned, “If Joe Biden wins, if he has the strength and stamina and mental alertness to do the job, if he implements the extreme agenda he is now embracing, let me be clear. America as you know it, we know it, will be destroyed. Our entire way of life will be flushed down the drain.” Whatever you may think of Joe Biden, he seems an unlikely Soviet-style commissar.

The politics of anger, fear and rage satisfies only the angry, fearful and outraged. The majority of Coloradans, I suspect, would prefer to see the president and Congress bring the pandemic under control, with masks if necessary, so they can send their kids back to school. They would also like to see sufficient “grease,” in the form of dollars pumped into the economy, to keep their families afloat, allow local businesses to survive and local governments to keep their doors open. They aren’t worrying about imaginary, anti-fascist anarchists. They want a reality-based government that will help us all reach the other side – competence, not charisma, required.