Truth, Justice, and the American Way
Or, why won't they listen to me?
I don’t know, I keep telling myself I’m getting too old to go on trying to save the country, but what are you gonna do when you see your kids going wayward? You’re going to try to steer them right. It’s what you do. Especially if it’s what you’ve been trying to do your whole goddamn life.
What a bunch of ingrates!
I’m not saying I’m alone in this. Millions of us are thinking the same thing these days. MILLIONS OF US ARE TRYING TO BE SUPERCITIZENS AND WE’RE FIGHTING A LOSING BATTLE.
I can love my country, warts and all, just as I can love my children and grandchildren unconditionally, without expecting absolute perfection. My problem, and I’m not alone in this, is that I see my country as my household. My neighborhood. Whatever happens to it I take personally because I have a stake in whatever happens here. And because I care about whatever happens here.
Is there such a thing as feeling too much? No. When certain people in my household or my neighborhood are put in harm’s way, or if they act like colossal idiots, putting the rest of us in danger, am I just supposed to do a ‘ho hum’ and pretend it doesn’t involve me? Of course it involves me! I live here!
There are people here who need tending to and then there are people who want to get in the way and do actual harm. I’ve lived here long enough to know who’s who. I can’t stand by and do or say nothing. Not when I know what gives.
We may see things differently, but as long as we’re on the same page, nationwise, we’ll be okay. In my own case, you should know, before we go much further, the Democrats are and always will be my family.
I was born a Democrat and I’ll die a Democrat. Nothing will ever change that. (So don’t waste your time trying to shame me or talk me out of it. I’m entrenched.) When I lose patience with them, or demand answers, I do it as the mama or the nana or the meemaw who never gives up on them but expects better because they should know better—and I know they do.
I’m always there for them, but, as in any family, that has to work both ways. They have to be there for me, too. For us. If we’re going to live together we have to respect and appreciate our differences, understanding that we’re in this for the long haul. We’re here to fight against the forces working against the majority of us. And at the moment the forces working against us are almost exclusively Republican.
The Republicans aren’t my friends. They aren’t our friends. If we’ve taken sides it’s because they’ve made it impossible for us to get along. So until I see real signs that the Republicans are going to stop doing real harm to everyone but the rich and the MAGA, I’m going to step in and say to my family, the Democrats, HUH? Wait a minute! No!
It’s a personal thing. When Donald Trump tried to cement his legacy by instigating a bloody insurrection (literally) in order to hold on to a presidency he lost and never did deserve, and when his party, the Republicans, tried to pretend it wasn’t that bad, or that Donald Trump should still be president, or that nothing any of them did during that particular four-year reign of terror was illegal or even unethical, they became the worst kind of neighbors. Some, including me, would even call them the enemy.
Naturally we expected the Democrats, many of whom were holed up in our Capitol building while it was under siege on January 6, to come out swinging. Or at least to come out hollering. And some of them did. But not all of them. Not enough of them. Too many of them still think they can bring Republicans around to our side.
I’m here to tell them it ain’t gonna happen. How do I know? The Republicans tell me so. Every chance they get. And it really pisses them off that the Democrats keep forgetting who’s running things around here.
For a while there I actually thought I could stay out of politics and move on, now that my family, the Dems, had finally grabbed hold of some power. I relaxed for the first time in years, secure that calmer heads would prevail and they’d no longer need me to nudge them into being our designated superheroes.
Silly me. A mother’s/nana’s/meemaw’s job is never done. When I write about politics here, it won’t be as a chronicler, as a reporter, as a journalist, or as an outside observer. I live in this country. Whatever happens to it happens to me. Whatever happens to the poor, the disadvantaged, the left out, the sick and the sad—they’re my problem, too.
I’m not going to sit back and let anything happen to us that could have been avoided. I’m not going to let the Republicans turn my country into a dystopian dictatorship run by and for the rich and the advantaged.
If they don’t understand the workings of this country it’s up to us to make them understand. They’ll have to give up any cozy notion of a country full of worker bees forced into laboring for the privileged class. Their propaganda machines, used to feed the worst kind of lies to the lower classes, designed to keep us fighting amongst ourselves in order to keep attention way from the scammers and the powermongers, will have to stop churning out that garbage.
We can’t thrive like this, and we shouldn’t have to keep slogging along, as if it’s understood the Republicans will always own us and all we’ll ever be able to do is shake our fists at them. We’re bigger than they are, we’re better than they are, and any day now we’re going to believe it with all our hearts.
But until then, until we get the upper hand, I’ll be here and I’ll be loud. If you’re here and you’re loud, too, let’s go. We’ve still got work to do.
Right here.
Right now.
In our own house.
