By Carole McWilliams

I do errands in Durango about once a week. There are annoyances generally related to traffic or needing a product that's on the top shelf at South City Market, but each time I get home safely.

Our summer is full of well-attended community events in Southwest Colorado. There's been no violence. I got home safely from Bayfield's July 4 activities, and as far as I know, everyone else did too.

I haven't heard about any violence at other events such as Vallecito's fireworks, Durango's July 4, their Farmers Market, their concerts in the park, or the Pride Week events in late June.

I've been up to Silverton to play tourist. No violence there either, although, they apparently had some trouble with drunken teenagers from Durango on July 4.

But we are told by our future ruler, He Who Must Not Be Named, that the country is in the midst of collapse and chaos. So am I just not getting out enough? Is our little corner of the world an anomaly?

I do have friends who travel out of Southwest Colorado, like to Denver or Colorado Springs or even Albuquerque. One was even in New York recently. None of them have reported violence and chaos in those places.

I bring this up, of course, because of those repeated claims, especially at the culmination of the recent Republican National Convention, that our country is in the midst of collapse and is no longer great.

Where? In big city neighborhoods plagued by gang violence? That's a serious problem, but it's not the country as a whole. The more general proliferation of gun violence, including mass shootings by angry mentally disturbed people? That just goes with Americans' love of guns. Sorry. He Who Must Not Be Named vows to protect this situation. Violence serves his purpose.

He tells us he's the only one who can fix it! He promises law and order. So did the Taliban in Afghanistan in the early 1990s, or this guy in Germany in the early 1930s. There was law and order in Iraq until we got rid of Saddam Hussein. Maybe that's why He Who Must Not Be Named admires the late dictator.

To be sure, I have very serious concerns about the future of our experiment in representative democracy, even without this future ruler. We need our representatives in Congress to work collaboratively to address problems and bring our country together, in other words, to do their jobs.

But who needs Congress?

He Who Must Not Be Named promises to save us from all manner of evil. He'll be our savior. However, there will be a price to be paid - the soul of our country.

That price is way too high, even if He Who Must Not Be Named finally gets specific about how he'll accomplish all the pie-in-the-sky things he promises.