It’s been this bad

I read an NPR interview with Jon Mecham, whose book The Soul of America explores a country post 2016, its soul inclusive of Martin Luther King and the Ku Klux Klan. We are in a perilous moment now, but it has been far worse. The interview is brief, the synopsis is easy, and I lift much from the text to present it.

The interview begins with Andrew Johnson, immediate post Civil War President, who said African Americans were genetically incapable of self-government. “He was a bully. He was self-absorbed. He gave self-pitying speeches,” Mecham says, though, the story of American history is that we have, in fact, moved forward.

He walks us through the hills and valleys that trended up. Rutherford B. Hayes became President of the United States as part of a compromise that pulled the federal troops out of the South. Theodore Roosevelt, was engaged with the idea of a melting pot, the idea that immigration was a force for good.

Women’s suffrage happened under Woodrow Wilson. Franklin Roosevelt was told if he solved the Great Depression he would be known as a great president, if he failed, the worst. Roosevelt responded, if he failed, he’d be the last. Then there was the beginning of the Cold War, of four years of McCarthyism, under the senator from Wisconsin.

Lyndon Johnson, a white Southerner from a segregated state, decided he was going to create voting rights in this country and finish the work of Abraham Lincoln.  And now President Trump is an aberration in the journey up hills, down hills. 

“The choices we make now will echo for a long time”. The choices are as important as those after the Civil War, as those of the best presidents of the twentieth century, in deciding the people we will be in future.

So, it remains us, and the force of individual choices. That is, the force of all the ideas you threw out onto my mountain of suggestions. I have to tell you, I still would love to see a national shaming system. 

Bigots, racists, just plain idiots need to be deafened by “What Are You Thinking”. How about Paul Ryon, retiring at 48 with a full pension and trying to take food stamps from millions of children and poor families.

I came to that NPS interview through Jenn Hoffman's inspired blog, which I have often referenced and linked to. One suggestion she often concludes with is thanking elected representatives of either persuasion who have helped us move forward any given week. It's as simple as a thank you note or email.

I listened to Elizabeth Warren the other night, on one of her appearances on Steven Colbert. I do not remember what, but she was thanking the audience and America for an outpouring of thanks. "Don't ever think it doesn't matter that you write to us," she shouted above the tumult. It does count. Do it!

With my sister’s help, the loom room is pushed here, pulled there, looking better. Laura is on a two night Adventure Crew camp out at the Crawford Auto-Aviation Museum at University Circle in Cleveland. I have no idea what they are up to, and looking forward to hearing. And, we have tickets for the great RBG film, next weekend. There may be a full report.