Realized too late: All I want for Xmas is my civilization back

Here’s one of those missed opportunities…

I got an email informing me that a close relative had made a donation to charity in my name. It pleased me — it’s a gesture a lot more of us should be making these days. Then it hit me that I’ve been having a lot of trouble getting into the spirit this year. It seems likely to me that the passage of this tragically corrupt Republican package of favors to their wealthy donors — just in time for Christmas — could be a major contributor to my end-of-year malaise.

I wish I’d had this thought months ago. If this were, say, October 1, 2017, this is what I would tell everyone inclined to buy me a gift for the holidays:

1. Go to your favorite online retail outlet.
2. Go wild — try to fulfill all my wildest dreams. Shop for me with abandon.
3. When you get to the Checkout page, look at the final cost of the gifts you want to shower on me (or the one or two things you picked out to check me off your list — it’s all good).
4. DON’T buy the stuff. Instead, write a check for that amount to the Democratic Senate or House campaign of your choice. Or the Democratic Senate or House campaign of MY choice.
5. Email me to tell me about it.

If every American with a conscience had done this for this year’s holiday — instead of filling corporate coffers and loading up on stuff none of us needs, buying into the promise of saving the United States from the orgy of cynicism and theft that the Trump Administration and the Republican Congress have wrought since January — what a statement that would have made.

Oh well. It’s just one of those lucid “wish I’d said it” moments that come to one a bit too late.

I do have a birthday coming up.