And thus did the greatest of all Disney Princesses inadvertently provide us with the perfect eulogy for 2016.
This year has been just plain godawful. Even as my own life more or less sorts itself out into something I can live with, the rest of the world goes to shit. Talent is taken from us and not replaced, stupid metastasizes and reaches critical mass, and for too many people, just being is becoming unsafe.
The moral: treasure the things you enjoy and the people you love. Everyone you know will die someday. That restaurant, that pub, that shop will all close. The show will be cancelled. The sole of the shoe will come unglued and the jacket won’t fit anymore. The car repair will cost more than the vehicle is worth, they’ll stop making that soda, your heroic wide receiver will graduate. A great and good man will end his term and be replaced with a racist charlatan. The pride and hope you had eight years ago will turn to bile in your throat and you’ll lie awake at night wondering how we survive this one.
And yet.
George W. Bush somehow got re-elected in 2004, but never broke a 50% approval rating again. He was underwater the day he was sworn in again and never recovered, because enough people saw through the failure. The only hope is that the Democrats in Congress fight long and hard and that they do what is necessary to show people a different path such that 2018 is winnable, and then 2020. Too many Democrats thought that 2008 was the end, the final victory, the music swells and the hearts soar and the war is over.
As Princess Leia could have told you, the Empire always strikes back.