(Andrew Kelly TPX/Reuters)
You've got to work at it to be pessimistic right now. What the eyes can see today and the ears can hear now is optimistic, not pessimistic. You've got to willfully ignore these positive things in order to be paralyzed by fear of the present and scared about the future.
The first Women's March was on the day after the Inauguration. Not a year after, when discontent might be expected. No, it was on the day after.
The Women's March was the largest protest in U.S. history.
There were marches all over the world that same day. The day after. Not a year after or a month after. The day after.
The 2018 mid-term election results repudiated the status quo. The 2018 election routed the Republicans who wallowed in the status quo. Clearly. No doubt about it.
In 2020 people are risking Covid-19 to stand in line to vote. Including in places like Wisconsin where the Republican Party forced them to vote in person or not at all, and the people chose not only to vote but once again to rout the current Republican Party who made them take that risk.
Who ever expected to see a Wall of Moms take to the streets?
Or a Wall of Dads who bring leaf blowers to blow away tear gas?
Or a Wall of Vets who protect protestors by standing between the protestors and unidentified but uniformed and armed agents of their current federal government?
I never thought I would see masses of White people marching for the rights of Black people. Masses. Not individuals, masses. Not small groups, masses.
Who ever thought that Black Lives Matter would come up from the cellar of public opinion where they dwelled kind of like the Washington Senators used to dwell at the bottom of the American League standings, to become more like the Yankees at the favorable top of public opinion polls?
And most recently perhaps, I have seen and heard all kinds of people stand in Post Office parking lots, socially distanced and observing safety protocols in a pandemic, to protest what is clearly the attempted destruction of public mail delivery.
As I said, you would have to ignore all these things, and more, in order to make yourself feel defeated right now. As President Obama said last week, don't let them take your power away from you.
©2020 Dennis J. Wall. All rights reserved.
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