Paul Krugman’s column in the New York Times is a sobering appraisal. He cites the many things he is thankful for — and it is quite a list — but he also cites why we have much to fear — and it’s not just fear itself these days. All bets are off. I’m going to jump to his conclusion, but I strongly recommend reading the whole thing.
...we’re now ruled by people who have no interest in letting hard thinking get in the way of whatever policies they want to follow. When Congress gets back from its break, Republicans will try to ram through major tax legislation without a single hearing, without giving anyone time for a careful assessment. The result, if they succeed, will be a law riddled with loopholes and perverse incentives, doing nothing for growth but adding hugely to debt. But they don’t care.
In other words, America has given me a lot to be thankful for. But it looks, more and more, as if that was a different country from the one we live in now.
Above all, we must resist despair. We are facing a challenge as great as any in our history. As has been observed elsewhere, a great challenge is a great gift. We must seize it, for to reject the challenge, to meekly surrender is to betray ourselves and our ideals. These are the times that will try men’s souls.
“...Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated….”
The party of Lincoln has turned its back on everything he stood for. They have forgotten his words, from another time when the very idea of what America should be was in question.
“...It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
It is becoming clearer every day, for those with eyes to see, that the outcome of the November 2016 elections was a great betrayal of the United States at the hands of enemies both foreign and domestic.
A corrupt party, seeking only power and its own aggrandizement, has spent decades attacking the very foundations of civil society and the idea of the common good. They’ve used religious bigotry, racial division, xenophobia, and nativism to divide and conquer. With gerrymandered votes, with lies and deceptions, with bad intent, they have subverted our institutions to serve the agenda of oligarchs and demagogues.
And while they were doing all that, they provided the opening for a foreign power to further corrupt our elections, use our own media against us, and discredit us and the very idea of democracy. Further, it appears that that help was welcomed by those who now have control of our government and who are using it against us.
It remains to be seen whether or not our institutions have the strength and the integrity to redress this iniquity, and bring the perpetrators to justice. It remains to be seen whether or not the majority of the American people — who voted for a very different outcome, it should not be forgotten — can reclaim the country from those who have usurped our government. To that end, I have put together my own response to Dr. Krugman’s column.
I will be thankful when the entire Trump administration and the GOP Congress are history - and we finally learn from history for once. I will be thankful when the super rich .1% are recognized as the threat they are to the rest of us who want a just society, a functioning democracy, and a sustainable world. I will be thankful when media voices of hate and division are silenced by shame and driven from the marketplace. I will be thankful when all the people who stay home and don't vote "because they're all alike" finally wake up and realize self-government is not a spectator sport. I will be thankful when superstition and sanctimony are replaced by facts and reason.
I wil not be fearful. I will be woke. I will be determined. I will be informed. I will be engaged. I will resist.
I am an American citizen, not merely by accident of birth, race, gender, religion, or wealth, but because I understand it is something that has to be striven for just as we strive for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in order to form a more perfect union for We the People, with liberty and justice for all.
The world is made by the people who show up for the job. It’s past time to get to work.