So stirring were these words and so much of the inaugural address a couple days ago. The entire ceremony was welcome and uplifting and surely a moodchanger for so many across the country. Several times I found myself moved to near tears. The young Amanda Gorman was so impressive. Even Lada Gaga hit it out of the park in one of the better renditions of the National Anthem I ever heard.
Thank God we are where we are now. But there is so much to do. And though I don’t like to use fighting or martial language too often, I have to agree with Joe Scarborough this morning on his MSNBC show with Mika. Democrats – and all true democrats! – must not turn a blind eye. We must consciously and methodically move to hold the insurrectionists inside Congress and outside Congress accountable. Those who actively supported this most uncivil war should be examined carefully and punished. Those in Congress who repeatedly supported the big lie were not exercising free speech – they were yelling “fire” in a crowded movie theatre. They should be expelled, their seats vacated in Congress, and new elections called for them.
We must all actively support those Republicans, Independents and Democrats who rejected the Trumpian coup attempt, and have rejected the promotion of white supremacy, right wing extremism, violence of any kind from the right or the left. It is time to act and act decisively. It is the only way we will make it clear to all that we are dedicated to fully end this most uncivil war, which started before Trump but found its final flowering in his froth and furor.
I just hope that the Democratic leadership in the Senate, and all Democratic senators including those life Joe Manchin who seem to want to play the field as a so-called “centrist,” truly take to heart this reality. I hope that they avoid the traps that the Minority Leader Moscow Mitch is surely throwing to the left and right, urging bipartisanship and fairness when he would have none of it before. We must never forget the many transgressions of that man, and the evil perpetuated in the service of an ethos determined to hang onto a majority control composed of Senators who barely make up 40% of the population. This morning I heard him crying crocodile tears over the filibuster. We must all gird ourselves and take the steps to make all legislative structures truly democratic and shed those so-called special and unique attributes of the Senate that in fact have only been designed to give more power than is due to white, rural, small state minorities. I won’t say all of them are white supremacists, but their actions have certainly all been collusive of a supremacist and right wing extremist mind set.
Let us be bold and let us be brave. Let us take the actions needed to end this most uncivil war, and protect permanently the rights of the majority of all Americans, whatever their color, complexion, language history, gender, residential location or circumstance may be.
