History is often a wonderful  guide, and sometimes reading an old and treasured book is helpful in times of confusion. So I reopened a heralded book, “The Guns of August” by Barbara Tuchman. It chronicles how the leaders of the great empires of Europe allowed the world to blunder into a catastrophic  war that killed tens of millions, destroyed most of their regal positions and laid their countries low and their cemeteries full.

You can clearly see their errors and muse about how even after so many died, they persisted in an ignorant vanity. This uninformed pride let to a second, more horrible war that killed more tens of millions from Okinawa to Normandy to Dachau and touched families all over the globe.

Such are the wages of such casual ignorance and this is duty of other seen too late.

We are seeing again such actions, but now we are part of the global carnage. The president of the United States has made us a leader — we are Number One, but we are ‘his’ dreaded word, “losers.” This is as easily seen as the flight of Marine One back and forth from Walter Reed Hospital.

Tragically now and not in a history book, we see another toxic blend of  ignorant vanity and unfounded confidence decimate the most wealthy and advanced country in history. In looking back we can no longer be amazed at the stupidity of those past leaders or pleased we would never be so foolish.  Unfortunately, we in America, are seeing our economy is in tatters, millions infected and hundreds of thousands dead in mere months. So many of them are our most vulnerable citizens – older and people of color now suffering disproportionately from the most preventable of diseases, some by a mere, scorned cloth mask.

There is no light at the end of this tunnel and no way to untie this Gordian Knot – it must be severed at the top.

Predictably with the sudden illness of our president, struck by the COVID virus that he taunted and ridiculed, a new phase has opened. This is not karma or God’s will – we should not be so casual or caustic to say even that its poetic justice.

There has been enough of that costly bravado, such faux bravery, from the White House.

All sent their good wishes and prayers for the president’s  recovery, but my fear is for our country to recover. Now this new phase must begin in earnest just as surely as Marine One flew back to the White House, tweets duly recording his lessons unlearned.

Now is the time to speak for the dead and those grieving families left behind.

There has always been only one way to honor the graves that lie in the battlefields of the world, simply no more wars: we have failed at that as history recounts.

Yet now we have a chance here in the only, single way to honor those who have died  from this virus to  say “never again” and act on it.

There is a malevolent presence at the White House. It has infected us not only physically but also spiritually.  It is guided by a callous indifference to the suffering of others and  facts – condemning the people he swore an oath to protect and defend by this callousness. It was clearly evident long ago that he was immune to certain feelings that most presidents have possessed, guided by grievances that were also infectious to many people, and abetted by  a cowardly, sycophantic Republican Party beneath contempt.  They have followed an unstable leader under the sway of quacks and bigots with names worthy more of a James Bond villain, the many Dr. Atlas’  of this sad and sordid regime.

This book when written will have a story of mistakes and pain and a leader and his lackeys, worthy of a writer as skilled as the author of “Guns of August”.

We are all living it and many Americans are dying of it. The next chapter will be decided on Tuesday, when decency will return to the White House and our country starts the long road to renewal. I anxiously await that book and the rebirth that preceded it.”

Tom McEnery is a former San Jose mayor.