We cannot afford to ignore it and do nothing
As with
many of my fellow Americans, I don't consider myself partisan politically -
never have. I am a registered independent voter and have been for most of my
life.
With that in mind, I submit the following: Can we please get this out of the way? None of what is happening
at the top of government now is normal. None of it. And no one should normalize
it. No one.
We have a President who lies without a second thought. Big bold
lies that are easily disproven. That is not normal.
We have serious allegations around obstruction of justice by
that President. That is not normal.
We have an FBI director fired for insisting to continue pursuing
a serious investigation into the sanctify of our republic. It has never
happened before in our history. That is not normal.
We have a hostile foreign power attacking and undermining our
electoral process. That is not normal.
We have an Attorney General under a serious shadow of
association with said foreign power, with indications that there is much more
to this story than we yet know. That is not normal.
We have Federal judges, our closest foreign allies, and the free
press under scurrilous attack from the President and his enablers. At the same
time we have despots praised. That is not normal.
We have an Administration fanning the flames of division over
race, ethnicity, religion, sexuality, and gender. That is not normal.
We have an overhaul of our entire health care system being
written in secret on a rapid time frame. That is not normal.
We have a sordid confluence of the President's business
interests and his political power. That is not normal.
The list could go on and on.
What concerns me even more than any of these items is the fact
that they are largely being met by a shrug or excuses from most Republican
elected officials.
Even many Democrats seem overwhelmed and are inclined to let
some of this just ride.
That may be how politics works. But this is bigger. It's about
our nation.
We are shifting the goalposts for our democracy. We are failing
to be outraged by the outrageous because there is something even more
outrageous that always seems to hit the news cycle. And that is dangerous.
What gives me hope is we have had waves of abnormality in our
country's history.
And we've had times when what we would consider now to be not
normal, like segregation, was considered normal.
What has centered and saved our country time and again is civic
engagement. I believe that most people in this nation don't think any of this
is normal. And they could very well vote out those elected officials in both
parties who are normalizing these outrages.