A sad winter for democracy, the environment, and women's freedom
Virtual Fridays Without Fitzpatrick (VFWF) 52
In Response To Congressman Fitzpatrick’s Six Years of Failed Leadership
Endings and Beginnings
It is winter now, a time of possible endings.
But I was born in a time of spring for our nation. America had recently come together as one to win a great war. With the great self-sacrifice of its soldiers and citizens, our democracy had defeated the overseas forces of fascism ensconced in a murderous racism, cults of personality, and truth-denying ideologies. Soon thereafter we committed our strength to a cold war against the equally pernicious totalitarianism of the Soviet Union where a Party ruled its citizens absolutely with fear and force. And we did so in the name of preserving and promoting our democracy.
Here at home we strengthened our democracy, not easily, but with the blood and pain of the oppressed and the wisdom of leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr and John Lewis. The civil rights movement gave birth to long sought freedoms to Americans who for so long had toiled for this country, but had been denied the basic freedom to vote due to a noxious racism. A new beginning for our democracy was on the horizon.
Rachel Carson with her seminal work “Silent Spring” ignited an environmental movement. When astronauts landed on the moon and beamed back pictures of Mother Earth filled with awe, wonder and a sublime sense of fragility, soon thereafter Earth Day was born and a new beginning for those who saw fit to cherish and preserve our only life-sustaining planet appeared on the horizon.
Finally, long overdue, the women’s movement for equality gained strength as systemic barriers to the advancement of women in all occupations began to be shattered. Women began to sense a new-found opportunity where old men could no longer confine and restrict their abilities and freedom. The Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision gave women reproductive rights and freedom over their own bodies. A new beginning of endless freedom and opportunity for women appeared on the horizon.
It was the season of spring for America.
But sadly, it is winter now, a time of possible endings.
Democracy, our life-sustaining planet, and the freedom of women are at risk of dying, in no small part due to the current iteration of the Republican Party.
Just this week, the Republican National Committee, in true Soviet-style, characterized the January 6, 2021 violent attack on our Capitol as “legitimate political discourse.” They censured the only two Republican House members who still have the integrity to defend our Constitution and who are serving on the Congressional committee to investigate the insurrection and bring those responsible for their treason to justice. The former president is still spreading the Big Lie that he won the election which strikes at the heart of our democracy by creating doubt about our democratic election processes. In support of this Big Lie, Republicans in many states are passing voter suppression laws (many directed at African-American communities) and choosing election officials who will have Party loyalty, and not commitment to our democracy, uppermost in mind during the next elections. The former president has cultivated a cult of personality, truth-denying conspiracy theories, and divisive racist rhetoric. Just this week he promised pardons to those who attacked our democracy on January 6, 2021, implicitly condoning force as long as it was used to perpetuate his power. The former president, and his complicit Republican leaders, strangely embody many of the facets of fascism and totalitarianism America fought against in the last century.
Republican Senators bring snowballs to the Senate floor to convince the uneducated that climate change is a hoax. Meanwhile they take huge campaign contributions from fossil fuel companies to assure their own re-election while the planet continues its course to life extinction. The antipathy to climate science has spilled over to biological science such that thousands have died in this pandemic for their refusal to accept the science of safe vaccinations. This week the COVID death toll exceeded 900,000 Americans, in part due to the anti-science politicization of basic public health practices such as vaccination.
The last administration packed the Supreme Court with conservative ideologues who wish to go backwards and rescind the freedom women have gained over their own bodies. The Court is on the verge of either striking down Roe V. Wade or eviscerating its effect.
My own Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick has served for almost six years now and has not only not done anything to reverse these trends, but has actively accelerated their demise.
Basic tenets and practices of democracy have been ignored. He refuses to have town halls. He refuses to answer constituent emails. He refuses to meet with constituents who disagree with him on policy and principle. This week he bragged about his State of the Union speech which was not given to the general public, but to the Chamber of Commerce. He has become a Washington insider out of touch with constituent needs since he surrounds himself only with like-minded people and, of course, his political donor class.
For 86 Fridays, constituents gathered at his office to express concerns about the direction of the country and his poor voting record with respect to a wide variety of issues. Many dutifully completed constituent issue forms and handed them to his staff. Hardly any received a response. And never once did the Congressman or his staff ever come to our rallies to find out what we were so passionate about that drove us to come to his office 86 weeks in a row. He chose to ignore the people he should have been representing.
I personally then wrote him 52 letters in 52 weeks about critical issues facing our nation. 50 remained unanswered.
I then began posting these Virtual Fridays Without Fitzpatrick posts on his Facebook page in response to his weekly newsletters. This is my 52nd one. I never received any response.
But what is most discouraging is not his lack of response to my communications. What is most discouraging is his voting record.
My Congressman failed to vote to impeach the previous president, not once, but twice. He recently voted with his Republican herd against legislation that would protect and expand voting rights. He voted for tax breaks for the rich, but recently voted against the Build Back Better legislation that would have lifted millions of children out of poverty and provided much more for working families as well as for fighting climate change. The above is just a small sampling of his destructive, obstructive votes that do nothing to move America forward.
But the single most telling fact about his poor judgment and leadership is his 2020 vote for the former president. He did not vote for him in 2016, but after witnessing the four years of havoc that the former president did to this country and its people, he decided to cast his vote for him. What does this tell you about the character of my Congressman? In my opinion, it tells so much and should convince the voters to end his Congressional career.
After the almost six years my Congressmen spent in Congress, American democracy is in peril, climate change still rages creating deadly extreme weather events and the continued extinction of species, and women’s reproductive freedom is about to be ended.
Yes, sadly it is winter now, a time of possible endings.
What is also sad is that people who are concerned about these issues, democracy, climate change, and women’s freedom, know that they are under assault by a Republican Party gone astray. Some will never know if America will move forward or backward on these issues. I know one such person who died this week and I know in her heart that she wished that democracy would flourish, that climate change be reversed, and that women remain free. It pains me to know that Republican leaders, including my Congressman Fitzpatrick, are either actively working against such progress or fail to show the courage to do what is right for our country and its people and resist their wayward Party.
And she will now never know if her dreams will be realized or destroyed.
But there is hope for another spring for the living. Two Democratic candidates, Ashley Ehasz https://www.ehaszforcongress.com/ and Paul Fermo https://paulfermoforcongress.com/ , have emerged to contest my Congressman in the 2022 general election. Both have military experience defending our nation and thus have proven courage to defend our Constitution and our American values.
As I end my weekly VFWF Facebook posts today, I am hopeful that Ashley and Paul will engage the voters over the next few months with the basic practices of democracy as they demonstrate a deep concern to protect our democracy, our environment, and the freedom of women. In this way, one of them will end the flawed leadership of my Congressman and start a new beginning here in Pennsylvania’s District 01 next year.
