The Pendulum

I want to fight, really I do. I just don't know how to. I've written a few essays here. I gave money to the ACLU and PBS/NPR. I went to the "No Kings" march. I was glad to see such support from all over the country. I think there are plenty of people out there who don't like what's going on. We can march. There is that. I'll do that. Otherwise, I'm at something of a loss.

The people we need to be fighting, if we want to make a difference, are the courts and Congress. District courts seem up to the challenge, but the Supreme Court is not. It genuinely believes in vast executive authority, it seems. And its most recent decision on nationwide injunctions largely hobbles lower courts until matters of constitutional importance are decided by the Supremes. Lots of damage will be done in the meantime, even if the Supreme Court eventually weighs in to protect individual rights.

It's the job of Congress to stand up to this power grab, but they are not. Half of them are on board with it, and the other half are silent. I can't understand why the opposition isn't screaming "fire." Fear of losing their seats, I suppose. That's an understandable but, in a time of national crisis, pitiful reason.

I'm just going to have to wait this out and see if a majority of my fellow citizens change their minds about what kind of country they want. The midterms will be an indicator.

I'm shocked that we elected this man. I'm shocked that so many still support him. Only time will tell whether this is the country I have always thought it is, or whether we have reverted to something close to the Jim Crow South of my youth. I thought we were past all that. Maybe not. Political pendulums swing, and this is certainly a big swing to the right. I just hope this pendulum is not the one from Edgar Allen Poe's "The Pit and the Pendulum," and that the body under the swinging blade is not that of our liberal democracy.