Personal Reflections of a Middle-Aged Man

Over the past four years, we have continued to hear the media and politicians heralding our Institutions are failing us. Our Institutions are in danger of failing as an institution. Will we survive if our Institutions become partisan?

It isn’t our Institutions that are failing, it’s the people within those institutions that are failing. An institution is only as good as the people within it. If we have inexperienced unqualified people manning an institution, we will have failing and falling institutions. If we have people refusing to speak truth to power, we will have failing and falling institutions. If we have a press that is unwilling to call out, tell truth to power, and ask the necessary tough questions over and over again, we will have failing and falling institutions. It is the people failing us.

Take the House of Representatives. For two years, the trumplicans passed no bills of consequence to help the common person. The only two bills of consequence was the tax cut for the 1% and the original Covid-19 relief bill. Once the Democrats became the majority in the House, it still took them over a year to impeach the incumbent. Over a year, when he had broken so many laws they could have begun impeachment proceedings from day one of their majority. Then, when they did begin, they refused to enforce their subpoenas, thus the trumplicans felt it was perfectly fine to ignore them—no consequence, why bother. And just today, 106 trumplicans signed on to an Amicus Brief in support of tossing out millions of votes in four states because those voters failed to vote the way they wanted them to do so.

What about the Senate? For four plus years, they have done nothing for the common person. The only two real bills of consequence was the tax cut for the 1% and the Covid-19 relief bill. Other than that they wholeheartedly approved everything the incumbent has been doing to undermine and bring down our democracy and institutions. Even now, when so many Americans are suffering in an economic depression deeper than the one in 1929, and during the worst pandemic in the last century.

Then we have our courts. The courts are a mixed bag and the jury is still out on whether they will remain a respected Institution or they too will bow down to the incumbent. So far, at least in terms of election related cases, this Institution is holding. The American Bar Association is failing by not immediately disbarring all of these lawyers bringing frivolous and unfounded election related lawsuits, but the courts are holding. So far, they are holding the line and upholding our democracy, including the Supreme Court. That is, to date.

The true test is before them now with the 17 states signing on to sue the four states mentioned above. As of this moment, it hasn’t stated if it will accept the case, thus giving the case legitimacy even as it goes against everything the Constitution stands for, especially the rights of the individual states. If the Justices want to hold the respect of the Supreme Court, and the Justice System itself, they need to emphatically, and unanimously, refuse to hear this case. It must not give any legitimacy, nor air, to this case brought by a Texas Attorney General who is currently under investigation for insider trading and abuse of his office. If the Justices take any other action, our last pillar of the checks and balances has fallen and the United States of America and the Constitution are no longer. We will continue to have the name, but our experiment as a democratic republic will be dead. Killed by the trumplican cult.

Just the thought makes me quite sad. How does the thought of losin our country make you feel?