Watching Donald J. Trump make a desperate play for dominance over Jim Acosta reminded me of when Mitch McConnell tried the same stunt with Elizabeth Warren. Donald’s attempt to get Jim Acosta to “Sit down...” and, yes, shut up, failed as spectacularly as Mitch’s attempt to silence the senator. Trump looked powerless, he was powerless- Senator Warren was temporarily made quiet, a situation she rectified as soon as the rules she follows as a senator allowed- because she respects those rules. Mr. Acosta continued to stand and demand his right as an American to speak and yes, to be heard by our government. Sitting down when told would either have been submission or an act of respect for the person requesting that. Mr. Trump earns no respect, and he was not requesting anything, he was ordering a free American to sit down.
Sit down and shut up- Americans don’t take well to that, we never have, you might say it’s the only genetic marker that we all share. Our most basic common denominator. We express it in a lot of different ways- “He puts his pants on the same way I do” “We’re all Americans here” or my personal favorite “If you want me to sit down and shut up- MAKE ME!”
We are bellicose when it comes to the ONE thing guaranteed us despite our wealth, our health, our gender or race, our abilities or intelligence- It’s that the person beside me, no matter how his or her makeup differs from mine, shoulder to shoulder pushing a common wheel or scrapping like crazy over a future policy position- We are all equal. I am as good as you and you do not TELL me to sit down, you ask me to. Politely.
The King of England told our forefathers to sit down and shut up, or else! We all know what that “Or else” brought about, a nation of people who knew they had the same rights as a king, at least in their country, and by the GODS or God or Whatever they would never again be ruled by a king, by decree or by anything less than the consent of the governed.
Us.
Have we forgotten this? Have we devolved back into tame subservience? Do we quail and retreat now, when someone who is, at most, a neighbor temporarily given power over us, yells and rages at our audacity? If you open a dictionary to the word audacity, it will show you an American. If it doesn’t, it should. We ended slavery and we ended Fascism and now it seems to me both of those are staring us in the face if we don’t recall our history, our roots and yes, our stubborn insistence that our government WILL treat with us on an equal footing.
Perhaps Mr. Trump does not understand this about us, if not, it is now our job to make it very clear to him and anyone else.
We are the power in this nation.
The buck, really, stops here, with us.
We The People.
Respect
P.H.