Patagonia, Arizona — Yesterday, Tuesday March 19, was election day here for the Democratic primary. While I was walking home after voting, I couldn’t miss the handsome, inspiring flag snapping from a yard only two houses down from the polling place in the town library. I also couldn’t resist taking this photo (see below) with my iPhone. As I did, a woman of about forty flew out of the house screaming at me, “What the hell do you think you’re doing? Get out of here or I’m calling the cops!” I reminded her that I was on a public sidewalk and that neither she nor the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Department could order me off of it, unless I was engaged in a felony. My comment did not sit well with her. Her voice rose to a shriek: “Get out! Get out! Why are you taking a picture of our flag? Get out!” Raising my own voice: “I took the photo because that flag is vulgar, offensive and stupid! I just voted for Biden and your flag says ‘Fuck You’ for doing just that.” She shot back that I was stupid and offensive.

Now, I should have told her that I took the picture because it was such a cool flag and I couldn’t wait to show it to my friends; but that’s the kind of thing you always think of afterward. This brief confrontation in a small town troubled — and still troubles — me because that it’s emblematic of the vulgarity and ignorance and offensiveness and viciousness that infects our political life like the Corona virus. It is part and parcel with Trump’s prediction, at a recent campaign rally, that a “bloodbath” will follow if he’s not elected for another term as President. Part and parcel with the GOP candidate in North Carolina for superintendent of state schools who in the recent past had tweeted that prominent Democrats — Barack Obama, Hilary Clinton, Joe Biden, among others, should be executed by firing squad.

My back of the envelope calculations show that ninety-five percent of the vitriol and murderous rhetoric belches out of the MAGA precincts in the right wing. I am an old guy now, slightly older than Biden, and as I look back I cannot recall a time when hate and calls for violence, from ordinary citizens as well as from candidates for public office, were an almost daily occurrence. A new movie, “Civil War,” premiered this month. The title is unambiguous — it’s about Americans fighting and killing fellow countrymen in a dystopian U.S. No fantasy, it might well be a forecast. Yes, I’m old, and frankly glad I am. It’s the world my grandchildren may inherit that plagues my thoughts and nightmares.