Charles Green Bush: Let Us Have Peace! -Fortissimo,
from Harper’s Weekly Date: published June 19, 1869

Inevitable Impeachment Trial
With only two more weeks remaining in this quarter—in this over-long winter—I realize that the NextWorld I have committed myself to describe in this series will not fully manifest before I exhaust my allotted time. Three months has been as long as I've cared to focus my attention on any topic. After fully immersing myself in prior series, I have required some fresh perspective. I sense that this series might have been a mistake, for I am not a political commentator or patriot by nature or interest. Yet, I have been watching myself channel my inner Thomas Paine in my writing each morning. I have felt genuine outrage that anyone would try to undermine MY democracy. My relationship with my country has never before been the least bit chauvinistic. I've thought the banner-waving patriots more hat than cattle. I have squelched whatever pride I might have felt, sensing my pride probably would preface some fall. The Mall in DC is lined with monuments to human folly, and thanking others for their service has often felt obligatory. I sometimes plumbed the edges of diversity yet still felt my country was of me. The criminals currently occupying the government disgust me, for I believe we should be gratefully bound by laws. The lawlessness exercised by these clowns might go unpunished, with four Supreme Court justices unable or unwilling to abide by our constitution. I do not aspire to be a reporter, though. I'm just a writer. I have surprised myself with the content of this series so far. I didn't know how deeply I felt about my government, how deeply I respected the patriots who populated the misunderstood bureaucracy until it was threatened by idiocy and lawlessness. There never was any master plan. The tactic was to disrupt, bring down, and humiliate, yet that tactic has been backfiring so far. Even the tariffs turned out to have been unconstitutional. Add that violation to the ever-lengthening indictments. I wonder what I'll write about when the inevitable impeachment trial gets underway.

——

Weekly Writing Summary

This NextWorld Story asks perhaps the defining question of our age: "WhoTurns?” Specifically, Who Turns Nazi? If you can honestly answer, "Me!" you're the eternal enemy of decency.

Jacob Jordaens: The Master Pulls the Cow Out of the Ditch by its Tail (1652)
"We dare not sit silently while this perverse, immoral minority tries to take over our state."
—
This NextWorld Story finally finds its continuity disrupted when it encounters what always eventually passes for reality. Political campaigns avoid reality like my cats avoid baths. Once the unwashed find themselves inescapably in the tub, significance starts visiting them there. TheBreaking begins.

Harold Edgerton: Hammer Breaking Glass (1933)
" … what might really make America greater than anybody ever expected, again."
—
This NextWorld Story investigates the concept of Consent, specifically the consent of the governed. Democracy seems a fractile construction that replicates its structure at every level. Space for despotism exists at no point within the overlaying structures.

"Commerce between master and slave is despotism." Thomas Jefferson

Unknown Artist: Nullification….despotism (1833) LITHOGRAPHER: Endicott & Swett
"We were founded to instantiate E Pluribus Unum, never the other way around."
—

This NextWorld Story considers how our world will cope with a Deflating economy. The prospect dredges up dread-filled memories. Inflation seems comforting in comparison.

Edmond Guilliaume: Bismarck, from Les Génies de la Mort [The Geniuses of Death] (1870)
"We'll see who fills the gaps deliberately carved into our once-reliable safety nets."
—
This NextWorld Story considers how it must be to live in the future, for NextWorld, whatever else it might be, exists only in FutureTensions. It seems to be a world expressly belonging to True Believers and blocked to those of us who insist upon existing in the present.

Corita Kent (Sister Mary Corita): let the sun shine (1968)
"We experience dying."
—
This NextWorld Story finds me mustering antibodies to defend our democracy against enemies, both foreign and domestic. We're infected, which means the enemy we engage with is us. Defense gets tricky when NoDogBarking announces the enemy, and it quickly metastasizes into our own flesh and bones.

Edwin Landseer: The dog and the shadow (1877) Engraver: Charles Cousen
"Our antibodies should vanquish this evil infection."
—
This writing week seems, in retrospect, to have been of great consequence. This week's stories had genuine heft and might have been too weighty for their own good. I was finally accurately describing what I had been seeing. I've been engaging in play-by-play reporting, the kind someone announcing a football or baseball game performs. These are unscripted performances, though, depending upon raw observation and whatever transforms that into communication. I unavoidably present myself because I'm the stuff through which I filter my observations. The structure comes from my scanning the playing field. I have spent an hour or more each morning choosing where to focus my attention. I sort through competing alternatives until, like winnowing yarrow sticks, I'm left with a focus. The resulting story more or less writes itself. The question Who Turns? has been haunting me these recent weeks. TheBreaking started as just another crack before it became defining. I sensed that I had not and would not Consent to the clown show pretending to be my government, which renders it despotism. My PTSD started flaring up as I watched early signs of a Deflating economy dredging up earlier terrors. I noticed that I had not traded my present for a pocket full of alluring promises and that I might be immune to all forms of evangelism. I ended this writing week meditating on how an enemy within forces one to battle against one's self, the touchiest confrontation. Thank you for following along.

©2025 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #NextWorld, #PureSchmaltz