When silence is complicity.
Today, I mourn for more than the life prior to COVID-19. Today I mourn for my country, for our democracy, for the death of so much decency.
Today, we (and the rest of the world) watched a mob incited by an actual President of United States of America, storm the Capitol Building to try to prevent a legal count of electoral votes by Congress. Luckily, the electoral votes were saved, the mob turned away with minimal injury or bloodshed, and the democratic process continues as I write this.
This travesty, this attack on the very heart of the constitutional democracy, filled me with dread, with anger and indignation and more — it filled me with shame. Right now, I am ashamed to be an American citizen, ashamed of the Republican party. Deeply ashamed.
And yet, I am not surprised. I expected nothing else from the pathetic excuse for a man — the bully and thug currently sitting in the White House. The fact that this didn’t surprise me — still doesn’t surprise me — shows exactly what we all know about trump (lowercase intended, as he deserves no honorific).
During my time blogging on Medium, I have tried my best not to write about politics — to stay out of the petty bickering of political parties and their supporters. This is not about political parties.
Earlier this year, I spoke up about racial justice and about how Black Lives Matter because, as a Jew, I could not stay silent. And now, again, as a Jew, as a woman, as an immigrant, as a citizen, staying silent would be a betrayal of not only my values, but my humanity.
I want to point to every single person who voted for the monstrosity in the highest office in the country and say,
“This? This is what you voted for? This is what you elected? I hope you find enough humanity within yourself to hang your head in shame — to feel deep and profound regret — because when you elected a person of no values, no honor, and no scruples, this was always inevitable. It was unavoidable. The events today, reminiscent of some backwater dictatorship, will be this president’s legacy. His ego’s inability to accept defeat, his lack of even rudimentary knowledge of the law and his desire to sow only blatant lies, discontent — only hatred and division will be his legacy. For those who remained loyal to this disloyal reprobate, history will not be kind to you.”
The President of the United States is sworn in to do, basically, one thing only: to enforce (protect and defend) the law of the land — the Constitution of the United States of America. What came out of the White House for the past four years was naked and unabashed greed, stupidity and collusion with enemies foreign and domestic. There aren’t enough excuses in the known universe to justify trump’s actions. So, don’t even try.
By the way, I absolutely don’t care if I lose readers over this article, and I don’t think I will. This message is not for those who voted for the orange thing, and who do not regret that vote. Those people are beyond redemption. And, as my parents often say, “May what they lack (points to head) come to them.”
I am going to go eat ice cream and cry now, because my heart is broken and heavy. On this dark day for democracy, I am in mourning.
