The last week has been a time of looking back at the year that just passed. To many it wasn’t a pretty picture. We must now confront the year ahead. In its first week, we will face the one year anniversary of one of the darkest days in our history. It has been seared in our memory and the scars may never heal. The Congressional January 6th Committee is planning public hearings that may include subpoenas for members of Congress, former Vice President Pence and Donald Trump. Members of Trump’s inner circle, like former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and former advisor Steve Brannon, have defied subpoenas and have been charged with contempt and could possibly face time in federal prison.
What we do know is there was far reaching planning by right wing groups like the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers. But more frightening, was the attempts by Trump and his inner circle to encourage the criminal activity and stage a coup to overthrow the results of the most secure election in history. Even conservative Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney, one of two Republicans on the committee has said, “We can either be loyal to Donald Trump or we can be loyal to the Constitution but we can’t do both. And right now there are far too many Republicans who are trying to enable the former president.” Think about this. A survey by the American Enterprise Institute shows politically motivated violence has significant support. Three in ten Americans agreed that “if elected leaders will not protect America, the people must do it themselves, even if it requires violent actions.” Two thirds of Republicans still believe President Biden was not legitimately elected.
We will enter our third year of Covid with no sign of infections slowly down. Just a few months ago no one ever heard the word “Omicron”. Some schools and colleges are back to going virtual. Businesses have pushed back plans to bring employees back to the office. Who thought we would need to show our vaccine cards at the door of restaurants and many other indoor public places? Covid will probably never go away. Our hope is we can control it and deal with it as we do with the flu. Just another yearly shot.
The Supreme Court will decide the future of the constitutional right to an abortion. The conservative leaning court will hand down a decision on a Mississippi law that would prohibit abortion after fifteen weeks instead of the current twenty four. They’ve already let stand a Texas law that prohibits an abortion after six weeks, when most women don’t realize they are pregnant, while it goes through the lower courts. It would allow any citizen to sue someone who has an abortion and anyone who helps her after six weeks. If they prove their case, they would be awarded ten thousand dollars and legal costs by the woman. The court could rule these restrictions are legal or throw Roe v. Wade out completely. This would leave abortion rights up to the states. Many would outlaw it.
Of course, 2022 is an election year. Our very right to fair and unbiased elections are under threat. Most Republican state legislatures have changed the rules to restrict voting and allow politicians to challenge and change results they don’t like. Democrats are pushing a federal law called For the People. It has passed the House with no Republican support. It’s stuck in the Senate because of the filibuster rule which says a bill has to get sixty votes to move forward. With the Senate split 50-50 and no Republican support, the filibuster rule would have to be dropped. The Democrats could do that, but they need all fifty senators and the vice president’s tie breaker to do it. Two Democratic senators refuse, Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema. The bill would require states to provide fifteen days of early voting. It would require every state to allow voting by mail and mandate online same-day voter registration. It would also restore voting rights to felons who have served their sentence.
So there is the fear. Where is the hope? The country has been torn apart before. The Civil War, the failure of reconstruction, decades of racial discrimination, Vietnam, the trauma of the sixties, Watergate, corrupt presidents. We survived it all. We still have scars. We are once again at a tipping point. We have to decide what kind of a country we want for ourselves and our children. Reason and compromise have been our foundation. We have to do more than hope things will get better or think none of this really affects me. Inaction has consequences. We get the country we deserve.
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