Betsy Devos just got confirmed. For the first time in American history, the Vice President had to vote in order for that to happen. Other than the Devos family (I assume) and the President, I don’t know of anyone that’s happy about it. America has gotten what it voted for when it elected Donald Trump and a whole bunch of Republicans.
Democrats lost this election. I don’t even pretend to know why, though I have some ideas:
1) White men didn’t forget that they still have some power in America’s system.
2) The Dems put up a candidate no one was really thrilled with.
3) The American people “done had enough” and wanted something different. Republicans picked their “something different”. Democrats didn’t.
4) It was a full moon on Election Day and the hellmouth opened under Sunnyvale.
The point is this: Though nobody could have imagined this cabinet, we got what we voted for. This is the way it works.
What does it mean? It means we have to stay awake, use our power when it does the most good, get in there and play the game. For those of you who think or thought we had to wait for 4 years to fix this–No. Midterm elections happen in less than two years. We have to organize, we have to put aside our divisions, we have to win states, we have to fight for democracy at every turn.
Teachers Unions, you have to fight for our kids. We have to support you. We have to take over school boards. We have to defy when our kids will suffer. Instead of telling Trump to read the Constitution, we need to read the Constitution and turn over every rock in it to find an advantage. Then we need to use it. Furthermore, we need to make them use it, at every turn. We have to use anything and everything at our disposal.
Insisting on Truth — aka Facts — is already starting to work. Using as many branches of government as we can is starting to work. Our government, with all of its complexities reminds me of the safeguards at 3 Mile Island — five or six deep. Make no mistake, some of the damage will be done. It just will, with this many problems to protect against. That doesn’t mean the safeguards aren’t there, and shouldn’t be used. We have to use everything at our disposal, but we can and we will, because we have to.
Resisting with peace,
John
Because It Matters 