For the defenders of democracy, the first order of business is to win control of Congress back from the cult-like Trumpsters who now preside there. Then of course, to win the Presidency in 2028.
But neither of those alone will be enough to heal the cancer that’s now deep in the bones of our democracy. We have broken our most basic social contract: the idea that government should secure our unalienable rights to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” We have become a government of the corporations, by the corporations, and for the corporations, leaving us with too many Americans for whom America is simply too expensive a place to live, a planet imploding under the weight of our irresponsible environmental policies, and militarism the dominant factor in our foreign policy.
Enough is enough. We need to rethink, repair, and regenerate what is good, true, and beautiful about our country and the world.
Conscious citizenship means more than that you have a passport. It means you have an emotional investment in the well-being of your country. You understand the responsibilities that come with power, you understand the gravity of the mistakes that we have made, you understand the depth of the problems we face, and you are dedicated to being part of the solution.
All of us are responsible now for all of the above. We need to see citizenship itself as a layer of any meaningful, well-lived life. We need a movement of Americans now ready to think, feel and act our way into a new America. Out of this period of chaos can emerge a new beginning, but only if we are willing to make it so.
Let’s goooo!
Thanks to Maddie Hale for having me on this week’s Trump Report.
And don’t forget to join me for a Town Hall for paid subscribers on Monday, April 27. You can find the login info here.
Let’s recognize and honor the gifts that democracy, forgiveness, peace, and planet truly are. We won’t survive without them.
I agree wholeheartedly with what you've said, and I want to identify and reach out to individuals, organizations, and leaders who are prepared to begin making plans for such a transformation.
After Democrats win back the House and Senate and impeach Donald Trump, along with his Cabinet, there needs to be a Truth and Reconciliation Commission - with broad participation - that does a full accounting of the crimes of the Trump Administration and prosecutes them. (Elections cannot take the place of justice.) The process and results must be made CLEAR and INDISPUTABLE to voters, with evidence, using pictures and cartoons if necessary.
The Democrats also need multiple plans for stopping the war, stabilizing the economy, restoring the rule of law, restoring the cut safety nets, restoring government staffing, restoring relations with allies, rescuing detainees at ICE prison camps, and repairing the enormous damage done to the government, institutions, decency norms, and to truth itself. There are too many more tasks to list them all here.
To achieve any of them, however, we have to do the difficult work of bringing together the country's many competing interests in a patriotic movement to reform ourselves -- constitutionally, legally, politically, economically, socially, psychologically, and spiritually. We have to start recruiting the best minds in the country (and from other countries) to begin these monumental tasks now. We should form a leadership group that goes way beyond party politics and politicians to strategize the way(s) forward. We will especially need top intellectuals, excellent communicators, conflict mediators, and other experts to commit to the work. Marianne Williamson and Pete Buttigieg could lead or work on such a group to build a movement that informs the Democratic Party in its efforts to respond to the grave and complex situation our democracy has devolved to.
I would love to hear some discussion at your town hall April 27 of PLANS to get moving on the difficult, multidimensional work that lies ahead.