Half the country is hoping President Donald Trump is dying. The other half thinks that, if he does die, he will rise again on the third day and send troops into Cleveland.

This does not make me more comfortable as I head to the dollar store to buy the cat litter my wife told me we need. Everyday errands are almost embarrassing during times of national upheaval.

Dollar stores are, of course, the visible rash of American decline, along with dried noodle meals in crinkly plastic bags and an American flag proudly flown in a driving rain by a homeowner who thinks you should go to jail for "disrespecting" the American flag.

And that's the downward progression in everything. Online shopping too expensive, and you don't have a credit card? The next rung down is Walmart. Is Walmart too high up the tree for your minimum wage paycheck? The dollar store is still closer to the ground.

After the dollar store, it's the food pantry, and you're so close to the ground that you're sleeping on the ground in a clump of weeds not too far from the seldom-used tennis courts in a city park.

Politically, the progression began with Ronald Reagan, who hated government so much he ran for president. Reagan was a potato in a suit, which means he said things so simply that anyone could understand. Reagan too intellectual for you? The next rung down was Bush the Second, a perfectly nice rich man whose principal value was that he was not only not smarter than you were, but he wasn't even as smart as Reagan. And if Bush made you feel slow of thought, eventually there was Trump, who called everything he liked "beautiful" and everything he didn't like "sick" and so was praised for his oratory and for his bulletproof ears.

In terms of cigarettes, the American downscalator started when you bought Marlboros. When Marlboros got too expensive, you bought generics with a name like "Premium." One more tax hike on cigarettes, and you bought a rolling machine. And you started to make your own cigarettes with a tobacco that came in half-pound plastic bags and was sold under the name "Gunfighter" so you could pretend you were getting tougher, not poorer.

And you elected Donald Trump because, for you, there was no rung lower than a Black president, or at least you thought there wasn't, and there was no rung lower than electing a woman who, by God, wasn't even white, or so you thought.

And what you got was the god of the dollar store, who will be crucified by the mainstream media and the fact that he's nearly 80 but who will rise again on the third day and will be seated at the right hand of Vladimir Putin.

And it won't be that bad. All religions start bloody. Conquest. Forced conversions, burning despised minorities, gays and women. After a while, it settles out, and the hymns drown out the screams, and belief becomes a habit, like smoking.

We await the Second Coming with great anticipation, standing in the parking lot of the dollar store, smoking a cigarette we made at home, feeling the beginning of fall, clutching the little packets of dried noodles that, when we add hot water, will see us through to a brighter day when there will be no decisions left to make.

To find out more about Marc Dion, and read words by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit www.creators.com. Dion's latest book, a collection of his best columns, is called "Mean Old Liberal." It is available in paperback from Amazon.com, and for Nook, Kindle and iBooks.

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