Never in the past decade during which we have visited Hilton Head Island have we seen it more quiet than it is today. We’ve been here at the height of winter. We’ve been here at the height of summer (specifically July 4th). We’ve been here at the commencement of the RBC Heritage PGA golf tournament (and vacated as a result of the overwhelming commotion). We’ve been here at the start of the season, the middle and the end. We’ve been here for intervals of 2-weeks, 2-months and 6-months. Never have we experienced the tranquillity that exists today and during the past several days.
Initially we thought the sombreness had to do with the Super Bowl championship football game. But when the quietude was so prolonged we felt it must be something else. But what?
Echoing this sparsity is the austerity of licence plates from Ontario and Québec both of which historically have been prolific. Not this year.
There is a pervasive feeling of instability brewing just below the surface. Yet it is impossible to identify or claim. It is a hidden though malignant spirit, one that discernibly simmers and contaminates the normally bustling evidence of cyclists, pickleball players, restaurant diners and cars. Yet today each of those elements has been quelled as though in preparation for an impending storm or other act of aggression. The families of cyclists were infrequent. The pickleball courts were empty. The parking lot aside the South Beach restaurant was empty. The innumerable Sea Pines roadways were practically without activity. The car wash was dull.
What is common not only to Hilton Head Island but also to the whole of the United States of America as well as the immediate neighbours (Canada and Mexico) and indeed the Western world is the sudden manner in which Donald J. Trump and his minions have overtaken the White House as though it were in need of complete renovation. Given his history of blame and warning about everything in the government, and the seeming conviction of the American public regarding the disputes and allegations, who is to say within this cantankerous political environment whether there is any substance to the claims? Both sides of the argument are by now so disjointed from one another that it is impossible to credit either with certain fact or fiction.
Being in a so-called “red” (Republican) state also engenders speculation. The native Confederate flag (or siubtle insinuations and variations of it) can be seen to the clear eye. We’ve been told by family members wintering in Florida that they have been advised not to fly a Canadian flag even in their predominantly Canadian community. These understandably delicate indicia are difficult to isolate or read. The silence of certain of our so-called “leftist” (Democrat) friends from further north is minimally haunting. Trump never tires of shouting the threat of the “radical left” while at the same time the news channels are fraught with his bayonet and scythe style of clearing the government.
International leaders (including even those from Israel) have been shocked to hear what is common from Trump on the world stage as though he were about to upset the entire political topography. Issues such as the piggy-backing onto America money and power are front and centre. It has forced others – including my own fellow citizens of Canada – to debate the legitimacy of the wild propositions coming from the White House. The drama surrounding these proceedings has succeeded to make many Americans very nervous. Simple matters like the cost of eggs and gas, climate change and sexual identity have become disturbing to many. The true prospect of an oligarchy has never been more real. Nor is the possibility of another American internal civil war entirely unthinkable (even if advanced as purely mechanical and mollified by an immobile tranquillized opposition).
Trump appears to have stirred up a goulash of ideas some of which have similarly existed within Canadian boundaries for some time (the Québecois French mandate; the Alberta oil interest; the Native Eskimo and Indian entitlements; the overwhelming influx of money from Asia in British Columbia and USA in Nova Scotia. Trump’s complete disregard of the historic significance of national boundaries makes one similarly question the need or value of them. Thinking of America as North America is now a palpable narrative.
What however disturbs me in the identification of these vast concepts is their source. I am doubtful that these ideas were the object of valued review and consideration before Trump’s ejaculation of them centre-stage. And as I have indicated before, it disturbs me that the device of amusement may be used deliberately to distract attention from the more immediate needs of working class Americans one of whom I encountered only as recently as yesterday in a state of undeniable peril and doom. Finally the feature of parsimony (critical thinking) inhabits this realm of complication. The world of fiction, as often as it predicts the future, can however be nothing more than balderdash unless afforded proper scrutiny. But the fact remains there is an air about the place, in our heads and in our minds. Its nature and features are as yet unclear; but something’s going on. What lingers are singularly unique images of book proscriptions, insistence upon universal appearance, removal of differences, intolerance of want and need and an inexplicable haste to reinvigorate a social model from the 1950s after the Second World War when the threat to the identical themes had been fought and defended at extraordinary loss and consequence. The emergence of the United States of America from its puritan and colonial stratagems is about to be reversed. Cooperation and negotiation have seemingly taxed the limits of the international community. So I suppose that’s reason enough to be subdued.