Ready to serve

Every day within the new Washington regime is like a ride on Stratosphere X-Scream in Las Vegas. The ups, the downs, the being dangled over the Strip nearly 900 feet up.

While the playful analogy may suggest that one terrifying event is equivalent to another, nothing is further from the truth.

Because riding the X-Scream is a choice, and those who ride report that it’s a great trip.

Not so for the horrifying ride America is taking at the hands of an unelected official wandering through Washington departments like a farmer taking a scythe to his hayfield. It feels like we are being presented with a new horror every day. Jobs lost. People unemployed. Families devastated. Darting about from one area to another may seem chaotic, and it also feels purposeful, like a shell game. Move the shells around quickly enough and very few can determine where the pea ends up. The average American cannot keep up with the hurried pace and dizzying shakeups. Nor can we measure the best way to combat the craziness and stop the nonsense while it can still be stopped.

The courts have been helpful in slowing a few things down. But more help from Congress is not readily available at the moment. A few solid Republicans must martial the courage it will take to face down the madness. History will describe them as heroes, but that will take awhile. In the meantime they must face a vengeful president who does not know how to negotiate and, more than that, is known for getting even with people who cross him.

And we mere citizens, we don’t get excused from the courage hook either. I feel big change in Washington cannot occur without us. Our role is more confused, less clear. We are the citizenry, and our voices can empower those we have elected to the House and Senate to represent us. Whereas speaking up is THEIR job, they need our backing to do it. But we all have daily lives, work, school, caretaking a relative. These are fundamental responsibilities that should not be shirked.

What we need is a call to duty, and a catalog of duties that are doable–big or little–that will further the cause of protecting the American democracy. Somehow Democratic leadership needs to get itself organized and start rallying those who cherish freedom. If we don’t get our act together, I fear there is a point in time where our action may be too late.

What a sorrowful state of affairs. What can we do?