Today, President Biden bestowed one of our nation's highest honors, the President's Civilian Medal, to people who held the line for democracy and the truth regarding the Big Lie in the face of the violence promulgated by the promoters of the voter fraud canard and those who did their part to prevent the coup attempt of 1/6 from prospering.
His words bear some listening:
And let me close with this. Eighty-two years ago, on this very day in 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt delivered his State of the Union Address that became known as his famous “Four Freedoms” speech, as he defined America’s place in the world.
He reminded the American people of, quote, the “strength from the things which have been done to make its people conscious of their individual stake in the preservation of democratic life in America. Things that have toughened the fiber of our people, renewed their faith, and strengthened their devotion to the institutions we make ready to protect.” End of quote.
Eighty years ago, after that speech, on this day two years ago, we were reminded about the most fundamental of things: democracy itself.
As I’ve said before, we face an inflection point in our nation’s history. On January 6th, it’s a reminder that there’s nothing guaranteed about our democracy.
There is nothing guaranteed about our democracy. It's a truth our Founding fathers knew. They knew that the price of freedom (the "part where freedom isn't free") was eternal vigilance (regardless of who gets attributed the sentiment). Vigilance against the would-be tyrants, the demagogues, the inciters of crowds and promoters of smashed windows and shot-up homes. The space where liberty is safe is where truth can gain on a lie even if the lie had a head start, where honest people don't fall for malarkey even when it comes with side-order of strong-arming, where people charged with the duty to protect and serve understand full well what to protect and who is served by it. That liberty isn't the mad abandon of a ravening crowd, but the peace of any citizen under their fig tree and vine, and none shall make them afraid.
The saboteurs of our democracy want to anoint themselves as "patriots", and they may very well have the money and the barrels of ink behind them to try and rewrite the near-past to create a kind of "lost cause" mythos where maybe the rioters had a point--but they never did. This was not a Civil War, this was just brainwashed thugs supporting Trump because they wanted a reality show host to have another disastrous term because they don't understand how fucking government works.
Look at right-wing media, or even just the bullshit going on with the Speaker of the House decision--the coup is ongoing, There is a significant part of the Republican milieu that opposes the concept of good government, democracy, that sees partisanship as a religion and opposition to Democrats as part of a holy war.
Ideally, we would be better than this. It wasn't necessarily true in FDR's time, and it isn't now. But we must be vigilant, and we must nevertheless hold the line. Just as these good folks who were awarded today had done.
UPDATE: In a separate ceremony on the Capitol steps, only one Republican showed up to commemorate the day and the efforts of law enforcement in protecting those members and our democracy.
And in separate news, Trump is still defaming Ruby Freeman, who had done absolutely nothing to him, and whose safety is impacted by his lying words.
These actions seem very revealing to me. The coup isn't over.
2 comments:
Rightwingers in America have been fighting a counterrevolution ever since we broke from the Crown. Conservative ideology is firmly opposed to every right enjoyed by the American people today. The Great Unspoken Truth is the Civil War never ended after conservatives lost on the field of battle they moved to infiltrating and undermining the US government from within (as opposed to trying to kill it from without). Since then conservatives have stood against every advance for civil rights, health and happiness.
Since the Nixon debacle Republicans declared they would never acquiesce to liberal pressure and have been engaged in a 50 year Bureaucratic Coup using the byzantine legerdemain to steal the 2000 Presidency and 2 Supreme Court seats. But, in addition voter suppression and extreme gerrymandering has lead them to gaining unearned Representation.
The next two years are going to be a cavalcade of clowns investigating the Biden White House and planning on pulling off the Theft of the Presidency in 2024.
The only saving grace (if one could call it that) this motley crew of extremists and cowards may have is their own incompetence. I don't put a lot of faith in the media's ability to call Republican bad faith out for what it is, but I hope Democrats are capable of relating what the shitshow is and whose doing it. And who knows--maybe lesson will be learned.
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