There’s no use in me a-cryin’
I’ve done everything and now I’m sick of trying
I’ve thrown away my nights and wasted all my days over you
Now you go your way and I’ll go mine
Now and forever ’till the end of time
I’ll find somebody new and baby
We’ll say we’re through and you won’t matter anymore
You won’t matter anymore
Paul Anka
Nothing matters anymore. In what was once America, nothing matters anymore.
No shock. No outrage. No violation of norms. No ethics.
No expense too outrageous, no abuse too large, that we would otherwise be shocked, outraged, disgusted.
No breach of international agreements. No abdication of hard-earned international leadership. No cow-towing to dictators and enemies of freedom and meddlers in our elections. No conduct outrageous seems to matter anymore.
No personal behavior too adolescent, too idiotic, too rude, too base. No insult too personal, too uncouth, too below the belt. No barging into concerns where there’s no business barging into. Nothing matters anymore.
No lie too blatant. No false fact too over-told and oversold.
No overlooking and ignoring of real suffering too inhumane. No mocking of those below us too beneath us. No, nothing matters anymore.
Throwing paper towels to starving Puerto Ricans. Fighting with Black players in the NFL. Mocking John McCain for being captured. Grabbing pussy and boasting of it. Three marriages and even more bankruptcies. Russian collusion or at least aid. Threatening free speech and free press. Killing health care for our poor while crafting tax giveaways for our rich. Pressing, pushing, egging on for war all around the globe. Yes, even common decency doesn’t matter anymore.
Kindness, thoughtfulness, sincerity, loving, devotion, loyalty, sincerity, integrity – integrity, integrity – doesn’t matter anymore. They’re no longer modeled and are daily mocked. What we say and what we do doesn’t matter anymore.
We once worked hard to restore and build civil rights for all Americans. We once saw our faults and had courage to face them and fix them. Once, we hoped to mend our divisions and increase our unity but this too, doesn’t matter anymore.
Before, we acknowledged clean air, clean water, and sustainable energy and growth were keys to human well-being. Once, we knew we had to make great positive change to secure our advancement. Once, we laid plans for a world moving quickly to the future. But even where we now see the future leads – this doesn’t matter anymore.
Once, we were beloved Leaders of the Free World. Once, we were saviors and rebuilders of Europe. Once, we lead in peace keeping and maintaining world order. Once, we were the Greatest Nation and our Presidents were both revered and feared. Instead, increasingly we’re called belligerent, with a belligerent president, and this too, sadly doesn’t matter anymore.
Power, manipulation, bullying, offending, chaffing, provoking, agitating, offending, insulting – these things matter more than leadership – more than anything we ever learned our whole lives growing up. The values and ethics and practices we admired and sought to model and taught own kids don’t matter anymore.
America is adrift, having sold its soul to the loudest showman and it’s a base show, baser than a strange national burlesque where all our faults are laid bare and we’re stripped naked before the whole world with every bloated wrinkle, fault, scar, cut, and wound out there for all outside our national nightmare to be unwillingly witnessed by those who once admired us. America the Beautiful, we’re not so more. Those outside our land’s large borders think we’re nuts and even the U.S. itself is starting not to matter anymore.
Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth. This doesn’t matter anymore. Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God. Doesn’t matter anymore. Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God. This is long forgotten and doesn’t matter anymore.
So, “Bye, bye Miss American Pie.” What we were, we’re no longer, and the way back to where we were once headed will be long and hard and most uncertain.
Still, we always hold out hope and know it’s darkest before the dawn. Americans are reactive, not proactive – and the hope is that Trump’s American wasteland is a terrible, but still temporary blowback to the Hope we once embraced.
We can yet hope:
Now you go your way and (we’ll) go ours.
Now and forever ’till the end of time
(We’ll) find somebody new and baby
We’ll say we’re through and you won’t matter anymore
You won’t matter anymore
