Few in this age of social media knee-jerk reactions understand that the great strength of our democracy has ever been our plurality. The ability of disparate factions with opposing points of view and strategies about progressing into the future to compromise and hammer out a way forward that would benefit the most people seems to have eroded past the point of recognition.
Case in point is the bi-partisan bill to address the situation at our southern border that died in Congress at the request of a presidential candidate. One side made hefty concessions on former positions in order to make the bill palatable to the opposition…which it was in theory. But key minority players were able to disable this progress for the sake of their candidate.
This is the kind of maneuvering which has rendered our once revered system of governance into the most dysfunctional Congress in history. There are extremes on both sides dictating what happens to the middle where the vast majority in this country live.
Was this a gambit by one side? Did they know that no matter how much they conceded to their adversaries that the bill would be dead on arrival to the House floor? That is a jaded and cynical thought, but if there is one trait shared in common by many an aging baby boomer, it is cynicism.
One person I cherish and love in my family espoused his absolute disdain for one candidate, but vows to vote for him because he fears and rejects a minority of extremists in the opposing party.
Another I love and worship no less alleges that we are being lied to by everyone and that they are all suspect, but yet supports the same radical side that threatens Democracy as a whole. There is little logic to either argument.
But the guilt or culpability of a former president has now been thrust solely into the arena of public opinion and to keep silent at this development is to let Democracy die with a whimper.
The media, both social and mainstream, has done nothing but add to the polarization. We have taken for granted the hard won gains this new nation, conceived in liberty and a proponent of the greatest statement in social history in that all are created equal, and we are in danger of mutating into something quite different.
Some extremists say this is all because we have deviated from the will of God.
I ask:
Which god?
The god who allowed white men of the south to war and die for the cause of maintaining enslavement of their black brothers? A servitude that to this very day some still believe was “better” for them?
How sick a god is that?
The god our politicians seem to revere the most are a hydra of money and power. Politics-for-profit has to end. Power for power’s sake has to end. Will any of this happen?
Perhaps. But how much will be lost before we realize that we are like the proverbial amphibians in a pot of water on the stove with a burner slowly being raised?
I am praying to all the gods...bring the world PEACE. VOTE BLUE!

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