Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones:
Study of a Head
(1879)

"There comes a point in the history of a nation when continued Tolerance no longer cuts it."

My fellow Americans and I must be the most tolerant people in history. We’ve been tolerating the ignominy of a capricious incumbent and his equally insulting Cabinet. We’ve tolerated unprecedented abuses of our public and private decency. On any odd Tuesday, the current incumbent outdoes the insults King George III inflicted upon our forebears. Our forebears flinched and fought back, even though it appeared at first that they had no chance of vanquishing their persecutors. They were that furious. I feel curious as to what offense might flip our stoic forbearance and force us to take up something resembling arms in defense against the continuing humiliation. This is still our nation, after all, and a self-destructive renter has been absolutely trashing our old home place.

Any contest between couthness and uncouthness seems foregone from its outset. There are always many things the couth will just not agree to do under any circumstances, while the uncouth are never anything like equally restrained. The uncouth seem to revel in taking mean advantage of every opponent, perhaps believing that their just being opposed to them serves as ample justification for whatever punishment they might impose. Eye for an eye justice never comes into question for them, for they’d just as soon exercise overwhelming force, however otherwise unjustified, if only to absolutely clarify their dominion. The couth might eventually outsmart the unscrupulously uncouth, but they seem destined to take some damage through any interregnum irresolution. These fights seem fundamentally unfair, so it might be wise for the couth to dust off their Tolerance under such conditions, to maintain at least a narrow profile so as not to rile any less disciplined ire.

The King James Version of the Bible instructs: “Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.” Does this Tolerance have roots in ancient religious texts? I doubt this. It might be that we’re shy and retiring in ways that our forebears couldn’t quite afford to be. Perhaps affluence has mollified our otherwise native intolerance and turned us into a nation of appeasers, aiming first to please ourselves, then others. We can’t help but notice just how insane our incumbent behaves. Are we tiptoeing around, hoping not to be noticed by his capricious lieutenants? Is Tolerance just another form of spirited defense, albeit one with much less spirit in evidence? Or have we become a nation of virtual cowards, so terrified of losing our tenuous toehold that we’ll put up with the otherwise absolutely intolerable? Are we tolerant or cowed? How might we determine the difference?

Karma, or the Lord, will eventually have their way, and not only because they always somehow manage to. Our renter-in-chief seems to understand that his tenure remains far from secure. Sure, he behaves as if he owns the joint even though he doesn’t. His tenure appears to be more performative, the sort only ever resorted to as a last resort. He abandoned all hope for legitimacy the moment he abandoned decency in favor of belligerent performance. This choice clearly demonstrated the depth of his weakness. He seems to be ripe pickings for any odd passerby Karma or Lord to take balancing advantage of his dangerously exposed flank. He must be the most vulnerable chief executive in history, with nobody even in the running to take second place. His was always a race to the bottom, undertaken in remarkably shallow water. He has very little latitude for error and the overwhelming proclivity to commit unredeemable error. Yeah, Karma or the Lord seems certain to level him.

My patience has been wearing thin, having been repeatedly subjected to absolutely unnecessary and arbitrary insults. We have a toddler in charge who fulfills his role as if he’s smearing his Spaghetti-Os all over his highchair’s tray, getting his dinner in his hair. Not even he’s enjoying himself now. He’s way past due for a fresh diaper, but nobody wants to face this inevitability. His nursemaids tolerate instead, trying to buy enough time so the next shift will have to deal with the many-headed mess. Tolerance makes more than a little sense, given these conditions, but it doesn’t have to feel good to be prudent. Some mornings, though, I’d exchange places with my forebear Minute Men, even given that they couldn’t have known whether their rebellion would be rewarded with a home or Heaven. There comes a point in the history of a nation when continued Tolerance no longer cuts it.

©2026 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #EndDays, #PureSchmaltz