a WIng and a Prayer" (WW-II meme-song re a plane "with one motor gone" etc.)
BUT..

1) My Gramma ... and all which her adolescent-presence came to Teach moi ..while growing from tykehood..

2) The intellectual, emotional and visceral fallout from having seen LIVE/on B&W Tee Vee: the odious presence, mien, Corruption!! of Tailgunner Joe McCarthy (did I mention LIVE?) as inculcated a life-long [Beware!] re. every similar occurrence since that seminal Day --> on through ~ 5 minutes ago:
[merely a trivial item, but See the implications]
whereby the NFL Suits have decided to levy a Fine on any "kneeling commie-pinko (oft-Black)" Bastards/the Civil Rights applying to these pwned-minions daily feeding their avarice.
By Corporate Fiat.

3) The ABJECT superstition-driven, cowardice-fueled Evidence of the Oh. Say. 'emptiness-within?' the psalm-singing torture-OK-ing, clinically-Iggerant vox populi ... (which even moi has encountered all-along these many decades) ...
...

*THESE ARE* the Muricans (plurality-at-Least) as, all-along THEY HAVE BEEN.

Just re-read that exact Ben Franklin quote: from a Sage worthy of that moniker.
Even were Mueller et al to succeed Wildly=="just Next" ( ..which IS all you "could say with any conviction"), here in Murican *Ignorance Rulez Permanently land. And an National Epiphany!??? ..large-enough to matter? shall remain just as probable as..


FLASH! API, CNN, FoxNews ... ...
"Herds of maddened-Unicorns have paraded down Pennsylvania Avenue.. massively crapping Gold Nuggets into the laps of their adoring mobs of followers"
(now fighting over the larger nuggets.)





er, QED: We HAVE met that Enemy: and it is The dis-U.S.A.
Never-mind All Those Wishes/as perpetually feed the Fantasy-world that is our Exceptionalism™®

..but I could be wrong.. ... ..for some next Unicorn-ish Prague-Spring (?)
Fool me once.. Twice.. ??? but. not. for. [n!]