James McGuire lives in Waldoboro.

There is a peculiar condition spreading through American politics that might best be described as Rip Van Winkle syndrome. Like Washington Irving’s famous character, its sufferers appear to have fallen asleep decades ago and awakened in a nation they neither recognize nor wish to understand. Instead of adapting to change, they insist the country must be dragged backward to match their memory of it — real or imagined.

Many Trump supporters speak as if America once existed in a perfect, frozen moment: factories running, wages fair, neighborhoods homogeneous and authority unquestioned. They repeat the slogan “Make America Great Again” without ever defining when that greatness supposedly existed — or for whom. The past they long for is less historical reality than selective daydream, scrubbed clean of injustice, exclusion and struggle.

Rip Van Winkle slept through the American Revolution. Today’s political sleepers appear to have missed the civil rights movement, women’s liberation, labor battles, environmental science and the rise of a global economy. They wake up furious that the world moved forward without their consent. Rather than confront complex realities, they retreat into grievance and nostalgia, demanding simple answers and convenient enemies.

Facts rarely penetrate this condition. Elections are legitimate only when the results are favorable. Courts are fair only when rulings align with personal belief. “Law and order” is sacred — until it applies to a favored leader. Patriotism is loudly proclaimed but narrowly defined, often excluding fellow citizens who dissent, protest or challenge authority. The Constitution is waved like a prop rather than treated as a living framework that requires both rights and responsibility.

What makes Rip Van Winkle syndrome truly dangerous is not nostalgia, but amnesia. An amnesia about how progress has actually been made in this country — through conflict, sacrifice and resistance to entrenched power. An amnesia about who built America: immigrants, enslaved people, workers, organizers and soldiers who expanded freedom not by worshiping the past, but by challenging it.

This condition thrives on a distorted sense of victimhood. Those long accustomed to social or cultural dominance now claim persecution the moment equality feels like loss. Any expansion of rights is framed as an attack. Any accountability is labeled tyranny. Any uncomfortable truth is dismissed as “fake news.” In this upside-down logic, power insists it is powerless, while dissent is treated as treason.

America has never been great because it was static. It has been great because it argued, evolved and corrected itself — often imperfectly and often too slowly. Democracy is not comfort food. It is messy, frustrating and frequently humbling. It requires accepting loss, respecting institutions and understanding that no individual leader stands above the law.

Rip Van Winkle eventually realized the world had changed, even if he did not fully understand it. The question facing us now is whether today’s political sleepers will ever wake up — or whether they will keep shouting at the sunrise, insisting the daylight itself is a lie.

The call to action is simple: citizens who value democracy must refuse to indulge this sleepwalking. We must challenge disinformation when we encounter it, defend institutions even when they disappoint us and participate relentlessly — by voting, organizing, speaking out and holding leaders accountable.

The future will not be shaped by those dreaming of a past that never truly existed, but by those awake enough to confront reality and brave enough to improve it. The alarm has been ringing for years. It’s time we insist that America wake up.