America as a Developing Country
The Anniversary of Insurrection Day
December 7.
September 11.
As we recall the third anniversary of the U.S. Capitol being seized by rioters, January 6 has joined the ranks of the most horrible days in American history. In the words FDR applied to Pearl Harbor, it is “a date which will live in infamy.”
Thankfully, the January 6, 2021 insurrection did not wreak nearly the massive deaths nor physical havoc of those other two days. But in one crucial respect, it’s proven even worse.
[Continue Reading]Jack Smith is doing his job. The rest is up to us.
Finally.
Yesterday, a grand jury indicted Donald Trump for, in essence, trying to gut American democracy. In securing that indictment, Special Counsel Jack Smith launched a case of unprecedented importance to our country.
I’d thought that I might greet the news with relief that the inevitable has come to pass, or despair over what Trump’s abuses signify, or trepidation over the societal ruptures that await us.
But I feel something far more stirring. Not quite elation.
Pride.
[Continue Reading]Can we take heart from our political heart attack?
In 1987, I witnessed a violent, nearly successful coup attempt in the Philippines. If someone had told me back then that a U.S. congressional committee would investigate an insurrection of our own 35 years later, I would have scoffed.
I knew that our own democracy was flawed. I never dreamed it might be fatally so.
But here we are.
[Continue Reading]In the wake of the January 6th insurrection, Republican leaders want us to sleepwalk through history as they dishonor the graves of the fallen.
Memorial Day honors Americans who died while performing their military duties in our armed forces. This year, it is accompanied by attempts to make Americans sleepwalk through history.
The holiday arrives but three days after Senate Republicans blocked the formation of a bipartisan commission that would have investigated the January 6th Capitol insurrection. And it comes just one day after the Texas Legislature tried but temporarily failed to adopt one of the most stringent voter suppression laws in the country.
What we have, then, is a national holiday commemorating our history, following on the heels of a major political party seeking to deny it.
[Continue Reading]Hitler, the Confederacy and today’s authoritarians show the price we could pay for not pushing back in a big way.
It’s been almost a month since Twitterless Donald Trump flounced down to Florida. Some hoped that, having lost his presidential and social media platforms, his Big Lie about the 2020 election being stolen would flame out.
No such luck. In voting to acquit him at his impeachment trial, 43 out of 50 Republican senators yet again caved to his control. In the House, Arizona, Texas and Michigan, his loyalists keep pushing his party line or pushing out figures who don’t fall in line.
[Continue Reading]