Christopher Hitchens (credit: Wikipedia)

 September 1, 1939

W. H. Auden - 1907-1973September 1, 1939

I sit in one of the dives On Fifty-second Street Uncertain and afraid As the clever hopes expire Of a low dishonest decade: Waves of anger and fear Circulate over the bright And darkened lands of the earth, Obsessing our private lives; The unmentionable odor of death Offends the September night.

Accurate scholarship can Unearth the whole offence From Luther until now That has driven a culture mad, Find what occurred at Linz, What huge imago made A psychopathic god: I and the public know What all schoolchildren learn, Those to whom evil is done Do evil in return.

W. H. Auden (credit: Wikipedia)

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Above are the first few lines of a poem by W. H. Auden that has haunted me since I first heard it quoted (by Christopher Hitchens, I believe it was. He and Auden were good friends). The poem was written, as the title says, in New York on the day the world went to war for the second time in under a generation.

And I agree with what Auden implies in this excerpt: the people of Germany were so hurt and mad after World War One, and how the treaty that was supposed to settle it punished Germany, that they stored up an enormous hate from the time of that treaty (1919) on. Hitler was not an evil genius. He was evil, but his rise to power was not mainly due to his political genius, nor to adverse economic conditions. His rise was made possible by the climate of anger and hate created in Germany by the Treaty of Versailles, which really did cause great suffering in Germany.

So I watch the t.v. coverage of Trump supporters' demonstrations and I feel a chill so cold it leaves me speechless.

The images that haunt at that moment aren't of World War Two. They are of the U.S. Civil War. The worst war by far that the U.S. has ever been involved in. World War Two took a bit over 300,000 American lives. The Civil War took more than double that many.

Could we train the population to gracious winning and losing? To winners' saying, "You worked this latest election hard, opponents of mine, but you lost. But there will be other elections. And I still respect your right to speak your mind, as long as you are not promoting violence in your listeners. Dissent within non-violent boundaries is the concept that democracy is built on."

The Civil War haunts me because we humans seem -- in the main population at least -- to be unable to get what Auden is saying and sink it in so that we live by it.

As is the case in the U.S. these days. Right and Left hate each other with such a vehemence that their democracy with its noble ideas -- and they are noble -- is barely holding on. The country is teetering on the brink of civil war.

Why? I believe the roots of the current political situation lie in the refusal by too many U.S. citizens to learn and take to heart what Auden says in this poem. "Those to whom evil is done, do evil in return." In other words, the current victors in most of the U.S. political scene, and especially in the presidential contest, the left-leaning majority of citizens, are too obviously eager to tell the current "losers" on the right "nyah, nyah". The vocabulary involved is more erudite, but the essence of the message is still "nyah, nyah". "Hah, hah. Who's crying now?" And so on.

And so ...the followers of the right burn. But they also store up their anger and use it to drive their political activities. Will these include violence in the near future? I don't know. But I guess, and fear.

I fear the motives on both sides that lie behind these venomous exchanges. It's vindictiveness on both sides, it's ugly on both sides.

America, America. As your neighbors, we Canadians fear for you. Citizens of the American Left, my point today is this: mockery does not serve the long term interests of your country. Democrats, you won. Be gracious winners, no matter how provocative the actions of your opponents have been. You must. What's riding on your showing that higher level of behavior is simply ...everything.