Donald Trump’s off to a flying finish, though the finish line seems as much a myth as anything else in this unspooling drama. We’re beginning to see that by starting with mythology, then kakistocracy, and finally obsequious servility, the disease symptoms start adding up.

Trump’s trying to outrun the effects of his declarations by flooding the board so that we forget what just happened. I’m still fending off the projections of all our rights, LGBTQ in particular, being cast aside. Is it simply the neutralization of the identifiers that brought specific rights for minority groups, so that no one supposedly has to be concerned about anything anymore and anyone can go about discriminating however they like?

Every single right that has defined our country and culture is on the chopping block. You’ve read about them, so I won’t waste time here. Every pillar of democracy is on the block. We have four years of chaos ahead of us, as Trump veers the country into the camps of the world’s autocrats and seems to want to light fires indefinitely.

Can anyone figure out what he wants the end result of all this to be? It seems like a sado-masochistic exercise in building the biggest bonfire imaginable and either watching it all burn before throwing himself on it at the last moment or pinning some medal or laurel on before declaiming, “Now I’m unquestionably the smartest man on Earth.”

The pathology is blatantly clear. What are we going to do about it? Twiddle our thumbs? Disagree over what different polls and statistics say?

We’re seeing how easy it has been to ditch the Constitution in favor of egotistical illusions. The Bill of Rights, the 1st Amendment? Is this what we’ve deserved? More than 1,500 violent criminals released and a number of others in suits to feel free to continue the harassment of innocent citizens who assumed that they lived in a free country that protected the rights of all men and women.

“I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,” Walt Whitman wrote, celebrating the great diversity of a new country, or at least morally pointing to our greatest strengths. We’ve apparently taken our great liberties for granted to the point that people no longer understand the values that actually made America great.

Blindness seems to have replaced vision. Comfort has blurred history. Privilege has distorted compassion for those in the world around us and indeed the world itself. Plunder and pillage: Drill, baby drill.

Morality, though not always, is simply inconvenient to self-aggrandizement. The Tech Bros lined up for the inauguration. Culture and extreme capitalism collide with opportunities to appear shamelessly dressed in suits for once. An inauguration that transfigured the past into a dumb show. Honor to dishonor. It’s all about what’s profitable in both the short and long run.

We are simply images, rising and falling, over-inflated or groveling. There will be the meritocratic class and the underclass as the technocracy has free rein to feather its bed. All will become subservient to a class of oligarchs that only make assumptions about what its powers will do for the rest of us. Public relations, eroding guidelines, the great glory of the society soon to be governed by AI.

Our illusions surpass any known limits. No one has become adamantly vocal when Trump says he can’t wait to focus on fossil fuels. As if anything could be more out of step with the current threat of climate change.

Snow in Louisiana. “Oh, see! That’s not global warming!” But it is, of course. Imbalance means what it says. Unpredictability. Haywire.

The appointments to key positions. Putting U.S. medical policies in the hands of a vaccine denier. Etc., etc., etc. Get hip, folks. Time to get the heads out of the sand. All these people are not our friends. We’ve been twisted and tied in knots by misinformation, lies, and a climate of fear. Exactly what Heir President wants.

How extreme will this situation get and what are the potential outcomes? Any contest reaching the Supreme Court — how far will they go to rubber-stamp unconstitutional decrees? It’s so much easier to just go along rather than bang the drum. Trump wants us on the shore so he can flood the beach with waves that knock us down.

Folks! Examine what he says and what it actually means. Don’t be part of the woodwork. As all our institutions get ransacked of employees and programs that supported the average American’s health and prosperity, we will no longer be a first-rung country. Is Putin controlling the strings? What does Trump imagine will happen if all his policies and changes went into effect?

Can we believe he’s actually looked at anything, or is he running on pure vengeance? His continuous dour expression indicates a great chasm he thinks his revenge will cure? His condescension — a faint gesture of condolence. “Finally you’re mine now, and the guilty will suffer, like I have.” Folks, we must not suffer for him!

Alan Harris lives in Shelburne Falls.