09/13/2024
ABOUT THAT "DEBATE”…
My late mother-in-law, a public school teacher, had a sure-fire fix for any problem that involved a person behaving badly: “He/she needs a good talking-to!”
She would have enjoyed watching TV on the evening of Sept. 10 to see V.P. Kamala Harris give The Former Guy—a known racist, misogynist, insurrectionist, convicted felon and s*xual abuser, would-be dictator and weak man who thinks shouting and sarcasm make him look strong—a VERY good talking-to! Even (R) party officials who’ve kissed his ring had to admit that she took him to the woodshed.
So this means we’re one step closer to ridding our body politic of the cancer of authoritarianism, right? Wrong. One thing I’ve learned over my 85 years is that this flight from freedom into the arms of a tyrant is a cancer that never stops metastasizing in a democracy.
Some citizens cannot abide the slow and messy process democracy requires, and they fear the diversity that comes with this way of life. They yearn for a “strong man” who hates the people they fear, a man who says he alone can solve all their problems by ridding the land of the “other.” Ignorant of history—where tyranny always ends badly—they want someone who says he will make everything right with a stroke of the pen, a wall at the border, or a mass deportation order, one that will make America (or Germany) “great" again.
I was born in 1939, so I grew up hearing about tyrants like Hi**er and Mussolini. By the time U.S. and allied forces defeated the N***s in 1945, Americans knew up-close and personal how horrific it was to live in a world bloodied by fascist brutality. Or so one would have thought…
But a few short years later, a fascist movement known as “McCarthyism” rose up here at home. Millions of Americans applauded Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-WI), a sociopath who gladly destroyed the lives and livelihoods of good people based on nothing but hearsay, driven by a toxic version of Christianity which includes a lust for blood sport.
So here we are again. The current (R) agenda—aka “MAGA” and “Project 2025”—is a more destructive version of Christo-fascism than anything Joe McCarthy dreamed of on his sweatiest nights.
If we want to stop yet another authoritarian movement in its tracks, we need to fight 24/7 with everything we’ve got. Let’s send money, postcards and email. Let’s help folks register to vote. And LET’S SPEAK UP! Let our family, friends, neighbors, co-religionists and anyone else we can reach know what we value and what that implies politically. Let's do it right here and now on Facebook!
Some of our relationships may suffer, but if I can’t speak my truth to a family member or friend or neighbor (or prospective reader), how much integrity does that relationship have? And if I can’t speak up against all that imperils the democracy Americans should treasure, what kind of citizen am I?
November 5th will be here soon, and everything worthy about this country is on the line. May the better angels of our nature see us thru the clear and present dangers we face, right here, right now.
[Art work by Normal Rockwell, plus Hank Willis Thomas and Eric Gottesman of the "For Freedoms" project at http://tiny.cc/b1ulzz. My 10 books are at http://tiny.cc/rc2jzz.]
