I watched the stars last night, a universe into which has been launched the biggest telescope ever. The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, built at a cost of $43.5 billion, will travel one million miles from earth to study dark energy, dark matter, unknown planets, and light from a billion galaxies. This is the big picture, the macrocosm, where in these hottest days of summer we drown not in sweat but in the swirling sea of superlatives.
Biggest, millions, billions… mind boggling words acceptable for astronomy where for most of us, numbers have always exceeded imagination, acceptable for the cooler night skies visible beyond the calm and friendly moon that looks the same as it did decades ago. Millions, billions, trillions: superlatives have left the larger universe to both define and frame the political world that has evolved in the last decade.
A million is a thousand thousands, a billion is a thousand millions. A trillion is a thousand billion. There is no way I can bring those numbers into my everyday Eureka Springs life. The national debt exceeded 40 trillion dollars this year, a number grown from zero at the turn of the century. Today, $40 trillion in the red. How can any organization repay such an amount and stay in business? The number is so big its meaningless, perhaps the reason politicians allowed it.
Trillions, billions, millions. Repeat a word often enough and it becomes meaningless.
Less than two years into his second term, Trump has a personal profit of over two billion dollars. He is an old man with few personal expenses (he does, however, pay for each pair of the Florsheim shoes his sycophants attend him wearing) so it is hard to imagine what he will do with that amount of money beyond adding to his golden geegaws.
Both political parties spend hundreds of millions of dollars for each candidate’s election even though the most obvious, respectful, and cheapest method of politicking would be to hire a bus and hit the road, stop at every town and crossroads, talk to people, give speeches in churches and town halls, show your face and ask for a vote.
There are small towns in Arkansas where people still remember talking to Bill Clinton, people who voted for him because he stopped to talk with them. Right now Hallie Shoffner is doing that to oppose Tom Cotton who has no presence in the state, and talks to no one in any small town.
We are inundated with huge numbers and insults. Trump’s ballroom will cost over $900 million. The arch will cost millions. His war in Iran has already cost billions. He has $400 million in his personal political war chest, money he will spend to advertise himself for a mid-term that doesn’t include him. A mid-term GOP meeting in Texas will cost $25,000 to get in: our senator and our representative will each pay $25,000 to attend this event and not a cent to walk the streets of Eureka Springs. But those are small amounts in the political world gone crazy with large numbers of anything.
Vocabulary likewise contains only superlatives: biggest, best, smartest, most successful, golden, anything that includes him is not even close to normal or average. Is it the male challenge—mine is bigger than yours?
Trump’s political world, like the astronomical world, boggles my mind and sends me back to a truism I’ve heard time and again – all politics is local. This state, this county, this town, this porch, this old woman… I can understand. What can be said about this political piece of We The People?
I can understand the numbers. In 2024, Carroll County had a population of 29,263 of which 23,000 were of voting age. Of that number there were 16,629 who had registered to vote and 11,522 who actually voted. About a third of those who could have voted did not.
The number one reason people give for not voting is that they were “not interested” and that is where my mind again gets boggled. How can anyone not be interested in the air we breathe, the water we drink, our medical care, our purchasing ability, our choice for marriage, our very right to walk safely and listen to Eureka Spring’s sweet sounds?
We can make a better world here in this small space. We can encourage people to register and to vote. We can offer rides to the voting place. If we have even 90% voting we would make a significant impact, we would be responsible for our lives. We do not need the excesses. One by one we vote, bring a new voter, put our efforts into We The People.
Register to vote through Oct. 5. Early voting begins Oct. 19.