Time to Reassess

I have to say that the Miracle of November 8 is still reverberating at our house.

The facts that the Red Wave did not materialize and the Democrats still hold the Senate are reasons that there is an empty champagne bottle in the recycling bin this week.

But that doesn’t mean that everything is Just Fine for the Foreseeable Future.

Or, in the words of Han Solo, “Don’t get cocky, kid.”

The fact that my fellow Americans saw the dangers and rose up as a bulwark against the Fascism that was looming gives us room to breathe. But it is not a reason to stop fighting.

And while Trump was relegated to page 26 of the New York Post on his announcement that he is once again seeking to live at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, we know with hard lessons that his followers are fanatics — both outside Congressional walls and inside them.

So now what?

Now is when you get active, with a little more wind at your back.

Now is when you LEARN about your local politics, and start moving forward.

The Republicans in the late 1960s (those halcyon days of the Great Society and civil rights progress alongside the riots) knew that they needed to play the Long Game in order to gain power again. And so they did.

Year by year, decade by decade, they found ways to insert their worldview into local, then regional, then national government, step by step, inundating America with fear of “other,” love of greed (“Greed is good,” said Gordon Gekko in WALL STREET), and disdain of elites and intellectuals.

They did everything they could to destroy American basic education. No civics, no learning history except what was acceptable.

THIS is why most Americans can’t reason, can’t do critical thinking, and cannot objectively judge what is thrown to them by the politicians.

Now?

Fight back, and fight FOR your libraries, your school systems, and any other way to help the youngest generations see what their possibilities are when they consider the Greater Good, the fact that at DNA level we are all the same, and that courage means standing up to the fearmongers who would hurt the least among us.

I’m right there with you.