Beware tomorrow! The Ides of March! It’s when our modern, would-be Caesar, Gauleiter Trump, reaches his Rubicon, which, the pundits tell us, he is likely to cross. If Trump wins the winner-take-all states of Ohio (66 delegates at stake) and Florida (99 delegates at stake) in the primary elections, he will all but cinch the Republican nomination for president. And probably shatter the present political system as we know it. (Could be reminiscent of the Whig party’s replacement by the upstart Republican Party 160 years ago).
Tomorrow will be special, if nervous, for me too. I am launching a redo of what was to be my ninth book, on this blog. I finished a rough first draft early in 2011, then was felled by a series of surgeries and maladies shortly thereafter: left- knee replacement, right-knee replacement; lower back surgery; pacemaker; a near-death bout with West Nile fever. I’ve recently recovered my health, but my manuscript has been dated by the goofy and tumultuous turns of our recent history. Needs an update. Yes, I feel that I’m being summoned out of retirement by some mysterious force to provide solutions to our many problems.
So I mean to saddle up Rocinante again, collect Sancho from whatever bodega he is tippling in these days, and ride out ensemble to fight the unbeatable foe, for that is my quest, my impossible dream. It begins tomorrow, right here, with Chapter I of A Left Coast Manifesto: Why the Pacific States Should Secede and Form Their Own More Perfect Union.