A blog post about why I remain hopeful.

 

“The moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”  Martin Luther King, Jr.

 

That’s it in a nutshell.

 

The present GOP has done a magnificent job of numbering the ways for which it should become anathema to most American voters. Among them are:

• Telling women what they can do with their own bodies during their reproductive years.
• Telling trans adults what they can do with their bodies, how they can conduct their businesses, and other matters.
• Telling trans kids which bathrooms they can use, which sports they can engage in, and which states they can live in without being mercilessly harassed.
• Telling people of color how they can protest (as little as possible publicly; no knee-taking, no BLM protests), behave (without being shot by legal and extra-legal enforcers), and exist in a white supremacist society (don’t make waves).
• Telling military folks they’re crucial (as cannon fodder) but counter-productive burdens when they return home damaged and needing help.
• Telling asylum seekers they deserve razor wire, drowning, and thirsting to death.
• Telling voters they only matter (and should be counted) when they vote for authoritarian/autocratic policies.
• Telling their constituents that when they (the GOP) breaks the law/nation/democracy, it’s totally okay because the end justifies the means.
• Telling their constituents that the Rule of Law which established and preserves this nation only counts when those being held accountable aren’t members in their own ranks, and if not, any spurious charge is enough to take them out (Hillary’s emails, Bengazi, Obama’s birth certificate, etc.)
• Telling people they have no right to expect to make a decent living while holding down just one full-time minimum wage job.
• Telling educators what they can teach when it comes to the founding of this nation and its treatment of the non-white, non-male, non-rich, less well regarded inhabitants therein.

I could go on and on.  But that’s enough for my purposes.  Grover Norquist, a GOP strategist, sought “government small enough to drown in a  bathtub.” It looks like they’re succeeding, given the above list. But they aren’t. Because we are a nation of laws (still, precariously) not of  kings.

All the rest of us need to do is vote for the people who have NOT been  supporting insurrectionists.That alone will take care of 90% of the above list.  Because the same people are responsible for driving these wedge issues into mainstream conversations and policies in attempts to divide us.

 

“Divide and conquer” is their strategy.

 

There aren’t enough divide and conquer strategies to make democractic representation moot as long as the rest of us (whether we are in silos or in solidarity with other marginalized groups) stay the course and vote out the people who are trying to do what they’ve projected onto the Democratic Party: stealing elections. (Bush-Gore, 2000 was decided by the Supreme Court because Florida’s GOP Secretary of State stopped the ballot counting in heavily Democratic Dade County so Bush would “win” by fewer than 1000 votes; the recent unsuccessful, insurrectionist attempt in January, 2021.) They know they don’t stand a chance against a vast majority of voters who don’t want them in power, because they’re bent on obstructing the progress that needs to happen to preserve us not just as a democratic republic but as a species.

 

The policies they espouse don’t appeal to most voters.

 

Too many of us have black, brown, Native and Asian friends and women friends these days to make wedge issues work anymore. We’re standing up for ourselves and for each other in previously unprecedented ways.

 

And the younger generations have nearly all been interacting with their peers (of all shapes, sizes, colors, customs, and genders) in ways that have shown them that we all just want the same things: to be embraced as fellow sojourners, not just tolerated; to feel safe, secure, respected, and loved. To be able to walk down any street without worrying about being accosted by bigoted bullies who think some of us don’t belong.

 

There are still bigoted knuckle-draggers among us but they are fewer and farther between than ever before. As long as we stay active as voters, the GOP doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of winning anything in the near future. Until they repent from their wicked ways, they will remain Neanderthals while the rest of us continue to evolve into Humane Beings!

 

Take heart. Register to vote, if you haven’t already. Encourage other empathetic people to vote. Resist despairing.  Despair causes inaction. we MUST remain active for as long as the knuckledraggers do.