I think it’s past time all Americans face the facts. Our country is in mortal danger and not only from the Coronavirus. Democracy is in danger — from the 45th president and his blatant incompetence; from his mob-style consigliere William Barr, who has turned the Department of Justice into a political arm of a corrupt and increasingly authoritarian regime; from the Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell who has turned a deaf ear to the voices of the people while elevating partisan bullying and whining to an art form; from a Federal judiciary being overrun with inexperienced, barely functioning nobodies who will shape our laws for the next forty years. From a Supreme Court built to protect the billionaires and corporations at the expense of ordinary Americans.
From a presidential Cabinet that looks like a clown car full of Batman villains. From Fox News and its primetime lineup of millionaires who nightly confuse and mislead a gullible audience. From Rush Limbaugh, winner of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, a millionaire blowhard who makes his fortune peddling lies and hate and dangerous partisan misinformation.
From a Senate filled with rich old white men living high off NRA, big Pharma and health insurance lobbyists. With their no deductible, five star health insurance plans paid for by tax payers but available only to members of Congress, this august body of legislators is ready to throw poor and disadvantaged Americans off what little insurance they might have, deny the poor Medicaid, cut food stamps and other programs Americans need to survive.
From a Senate filled with rich old white men who want to gut Social Security and Medicare while managing to come up with a trillion dollar tax cut for corporations and billionaires. Who decry the ills of socialism only when it comes to helping ordinary Americans, but were quick to subsidize the Wall Street banks that crashed our economy in 2008, that today continue to earn billions of dollars from our massive credit card, mortgage, car loan, and even student loan debt, while simultaneously paying their CEOs obscene amounts of money and handing out bonuses that could feed a small town for a year.
From a Senate filled with rich old white men wanting to bailout airlines that have earned billions of dollars of profit abusing customers with their outrageous pricing, baggage fees, crowded, skimpy seating and lousy on-time performance. The same industry that has reduced their employees’ benefits, forced airline attendants to also clean planes rather than pay a cleaning service, reduced their fleet size and by some Machiavellian feat of scheduling have turned a four hour flight into a bizarre three or four airport changing nightmare that takes most of a day — that is if you can even make your connecting flights. So what have they done with their profits? Plan for the future? No. Buy back their own stock to raise its value? Yes. Pay shameless salaries and bonuses to executive officers? Yes. And now they want more of my money. No!
I think it’s past time for all Americans to face the facts. Our country is in mortal danger and not only from the Coronavirus. Democracy is in danger. From a Republican Party that numbers wise represents a minority of the country, but through cheating and gerrymandering and voter suppression has been able to turn state governments into pockets of racism, cruelty and anti-abortion laws that in no way reflect the majority of the voting public. That are ready to put doctors in jail for helping women, close polling places in poor neighborhoods and purge voting roles. Who even when they lose an election, try to quickly pass laws that will protect their ill-begotten power, refusing to listen to the will of the voters who have democratically voted them out of office.
From ordinary Americans, Republicans mostly, who quite amazingly seem to have no problem with dictators like Kim Jong Un, or Putin, or Erdogan, or the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, but think the New York Times, CNN and our entire free press are the enemy of the people. Who seem willing to trash the FBI and our own intelligence services, and the western alliances that have kept the world at peace for the past seventy-five years. Who think everything is a hoax or a deep state conspiracy while climate change is melting the polar icecaps, burning up the great forests of California, Oregon and Washington, inundating the eastern seaboard, flooding the southeastern United States and pummeling the midwest and the south with torrential rain and killer tornadoes.
From ordinary Americans who are scared and angry and feel left behind and told by the President of the United States that I am their enemy just because I think we should be helping those less fortunate than myself. Because I believe the government’s role is to safeguard its citizens and not bail out corporations that pay no taxes and keep their huge cash profits in banks outside of our country. Because I believe people come first — that corporations are not people as declared in one of the worst decisions ever rendered by the Supreme Court.
Because I believe that clean air and clean water are my right and should not be polluted for profit. That all Americans are entitled to health insurance, to earn a living wage, and to worship as they please. That it shouldn’t take two or sometimes three jobs to support their family. That we are a country of immigrants, built by immigrants, defended by immigrants, made richer by immigrants. That Americans come in every size, shape, color and ethnicity and sexual preference. That freedom of religion and separation of church and state are fundamental to who we are as a nation.
The president is wrong again. I am not the enemy. Democrats are not the enemy. The press is not the enemy. Social Security is a good thing, a promise, a benefit people have earned through years of work. Medicare is efficient, cost effective insurance for the elderly and could be for everyone. Socialism need not replace capitalism, we need both.
We need government loans and a Federal Reserve that looks out for average Americans as well as businesses. We need our military made up of citizens, not a privatized army. We need public education. We need the interstate highway system. We need the U. S. Postal Service, the National Weather Service, and the National Parks. We need a Civil Service filled with hardworking, talented, people committed to serving the country. We need regulations to protect us from greed driven predatory lenders and pharmaceutical companies who take advantage of the sick and vulnerable. We need the EPA to actually protect the environment. We need the competition of free markets to keep our economy thriving.
We need a bit of socialism mixed in with capitalism. We need them both. We need each other. What we don’t need is government that favors the rich at the expense of the rest of us. It’s time to clean house and vote Republicans out. Enough is enough.