imgresSometimes we writers search too hard for the perfect metaphor. Sometimes, it’s right under our nose—or, in my case, right under my blue, Velcro-strapped boot.

Infection: that’s what Trump is, I thought this morning, as I took my nineteenth of the twenty Amoxicillin tablets we brought home from the pharmacy ten days ago. Trump has infected our vigorous, 241-year-old democracy. And like so many infections, this one is fire-engine red and spreading, unchecked and unmedicated. Meanwhile, the patient is hot with fever one day and shaking with chills the next. Nothing tastes right. Muscles ache. Vaguely flu-like feelings abound. Waves of determination to soldier through—we’ll get over this!—are followed by languorous apathy: let’s just give up.

Speaking as one who tried to ignore an infection for several days, I can tell you it is not a strategy that works. After foot surgery on November 6, I assumed the three incisions on my right foot were healing up nicely under all those bandages, just the way they had on my left foot, last May. And they probably were, for the first several days. But then something somehow went wrong along one of those neat lines of stitches. At that point my foot was in a plastic cast, so I couldn’t see it. And for reasons I cannot explain, I chose to believe that feeling like my foot was on fire was probably “normal,” that fever and chills were a “part” of healing, and that I would magically “get over it.” Wrong, wrong, wrong. Thank God for antibiotics.

And so: if Trump is the infection, what is the cure?

The first and worst news, of course: it’s going to take a lot longer than ten days.

But we have to get the treatment started. And—despite the screaming-red, oozing tax bill that, at this writing, is poised to pass—I would argue that we have started.

WE are the antibiotics. Every time we make a phone call to Capitol Hill, every time we contribute to the ACLU, Emily’s List, Planned Parenthood or the Sierra Club (my own favorites), we are giving our ailing patient, our democracy, another life-saving dose. And every time a new, energetic progressive candidate is elected to a local or state office, that’s a mega-dose. Tukwila, a Seattle suburb, just elected Somali-American Zak Idan, 29, to its City Council. Seattle’s east-side suburbs just tipped our statehouse fully blue by electing Indian-American lawyer Manka Dhingra to the state senate. There have been similar victories in other states this fall, notably in Virginia and New Jersey. All of this bodes well for elections in 2018.

But this infection is ugly. As Charles Blow writes this week, it stinks of sanctioned racism and that smell just keeps getting stronger. In just the past few days alone, Trump has tweeted anti-Muslim hate videos, insulted Native Americans, and tried to revive his Obama-smearing Birther campaign. And as Thomas Edsall writes, the infection has spread its noxious tentacles deep and wide. But we, the antibiotics, must keep on until we turn the tide. Make those calls, write those emails, support progressive candidates at every level. Or be like Idan and Dhingra and run for office yourself.

And know that while we’re working to turn the infectious tide in 2018, there are specialists who are deploying other life-saving measures. Robert Mueller and his staff. Several state attorneys general. Senators like our own Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, both of whom are very busy right now identifying all the nasty bacteria that has been stuffed into the tax bill, like Arctic drilling and repeal of the health care mandate.

unnamedThis won’t be easy. The antibiotics will take time. There will be a lot of wound care, too. Scar tissue. Rehab. But we’ve got to save our patient. How will we answer to our children if we let democracy die?