Will Democracy Stand after Trump

      It’s the end of a tragic era, 4 years of criminal and cruel behavior, where a minority of Americans unleashed torture, and pain on the most vulnerable. As we move toward a new day with just under a week to go, ask yourself if democracy is strong enough to withstand another blow. While Biden wants to build back stronger, the cracks, and damage lay in plain sight. The world has witnessed our vulnerability, and the doors to treason, sedition, and insurrection have opened. 

    What has to happen now, moving forward, is that we have to build a stronger America. If minorities, and women don’t feel like they are part of the integral structure of the democracy, it leaves it weak for being disenfranchisement. White men know that they have held all the power and control for ages, their fears of losing their grip on being the majority, of losing their power and control over women, their reproductive choices, minorities, and their ability to rise, and make America part of their vision has terrified white men. 

    White men once, not so long ago, were the only voices in board rooms, in ownership of companies, running the nation, Wall Street, and country clubs. Now they find that rules and regulations, and cries for equality, and fairness have stripped their ruling control, and it terrifies them, because they never had to be strong. They never had to shine, they just had to know some people, and show up, and their mediocrity was praised, and given power. A new dawn is breaking, and they aren’t ready for it.

    They are no longer a majority of baseball players, basketball players, football players, they are no longer the only voices in board rooms, and their country clubs are integrated. White men have found through trial and experience that without all the extra assistance from their friends, they really aren’t the successes their mothers once told them that they are. 

    There comes a time for reckoning, and their time has come. Like looking into the mirror and you can’t see what you once believed was there, but instead you see the truth, fully exposed. That is where we are. So when people like Matt Gaetz says we need unity and healing, be sure that he doesn’t mean it, he just means that he wants your silence while white men rage on about not being the best. 

     Until we fix the core issue of racism, bigotry, and hateful division in this country there can’t be a healing that will fix democracy. We have to first acknowledge the original sin of slavery, and the blood of 200 years. Then we have to teach people that there are consequences for hatred, bigotry, and racism. That the future will not have a place for those who seek to turn back the clock, just to gain power and control at the hands of others suffering. We must deal honestly with the past, and then the future. Without reckoning there can be no healing. 

    Everyone who stormed the capitol needs to pay a price, everyone who supports racism, bigotry, and hate needs to pay a price. White men must learn now, and forever, that they are not the dictators of who thrives, or how personal choices are made, or what people do in their private lives. That the future belongs to diversity, and minorities, and women have a place at the bargaining table. Without those things we will keep landing right back at the start, and again another generation will be tasked with the burden of solving this, but democracy will fold, because what you have without inclusion is just a set of men willing to strangle out hope, just so power can be theirs. 

    If you asked me about the women who were there, who voted for Trump, who stood by these men, I would explain that women in religious households have been taught for generations that they are servants to men, that they are property, and that men are the leaders. The women think they are helping these poor white men to keep from being destroyed. There is often complicity where you find that women were taught their bodies are really not theirs, and that men should be deciding for them. It’s the height of self loathing, and a desire to fell like you have power by taking it, and giving it to the “rightful owners.”

     To make a better tomorrow the doors of opportunity must open for everyone, in a democracy all the people have a say, and their voices are included. That means everyone. In order to move forward we have to make space for all the voices, listen to the needs of all the people, and care for everyone who is the least among us. Otherwise, in the not so distant future, we will be fighting for the right of the silenced voices to be heard. We will be at war with the past, and fighting for the future. 

    We have to make changes, enforce them, educate the masses further, stop media that only lies, and return the fairness doctrine. We must spend more money on social programs, and less on wars. We have to change who Americans think they are and shine a light on who they really are. The people who seek power, and money by division must be stopped. Or inevitable we crumble. If we want real democracy it will require real work, and that remains to be seen.