So the year of Our Lord 2019 ends in the year of Our Lord 1979. An angry mob invades and occupies an American embassy in the Middle East. Unfortunately, this time around, the President* of the United States is an intellectually cramped know-nothing of a vulgar talking yam. From the Washington Post:

President Trump responded angrily Tuesday to the protesters' actions, charging that Iran was behind a deadly militia attack that led to the airstrikes and blaming Tehran for the embassy siege. "Iran killed an American contractor, wounding many," Trump tweeted from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. "We strongly responded, and always will. Now Iran is orchestrating an attack on the U.S. Embassy in Iraq. They will be held fully responsible. In addition, we expect Iraq to use its forces to protect the Embassy, and so notified!”

“So notified!” With! an! exclamation! point! And issued through El Caudillo del Mar-a-Lago’s official news platform, where it shares space with cat photos and polls for Album of the Year. I’m sure the Iraqi security forces, who apparently jumped into the breach, and who now are caught in a three-sided nutcracker between local public outrage, militia violence, and American whatever-the-hell-we’re-doing, are reassured that they are now So! Notified!

This is the year now in which we decide for the foreseeable future what kind of government we want. But, while we’re making up our woolly minds about it, the world is rolling on. Australia literally is burning down. In Europe, the EU is falling apart and people are slapping on armbands again. The Middle East is what it’s been for 40 years—a hot, angry region in which we truly have no place and no idea what to do there. This is a really bad time for American democracy to be deciding whether it wants to go into the future merely as an extended exercise in performance art.

Optimism is not exactly something that’s just lying around on the floor, waiting to be picked up. It’s something we have to work for again. It’s a heavy lift, but a necessary one. All we have as we enter 2020 is, well, us. In 1979, I was just starting out in this racket and there was so much I didn’t know about anything. As 2019 ends, I have come to wonder if everything I’ve learned is wrong. An open question for the opening of the new year. Comfort and joy to you all from all of us.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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