I’ve often been told the way to cook a frog is to put him in a pan of nice cool water. It is familiar to him, so he doesn’t think anything about it. He just lies there enjoying a nice soak.
As he lies there, you turn on the burner at a fairly low temperature. This will start the water to warming under his feet. Since the water temperature rises slowly, the frog just thinks he’s getting a little jacuzzi action. Unfortunately for the frog, he gets so comfortable he doesn’t realize his demise is happening right under him. His survival skills (his critical thinking) goes out the window because he is under the false illusion he is in a safe place.
Right now it feels a lot like we have a lot of frogs living amongst us, and mainly on the conservative side, and on the white people side.
First it started with saying convicts, well, you know after Jim Crow, Poll Taxes, and such, even after serving their time, couldn’t vote. But,that didn’t affect most whites, so meh!
Then they moved to a little gerrymandering,on both sides, but hey, why not? Keeps them all in office, so meh!
Next came purging the voter roles. Mind you, it was a little shady since it was mostly people of color on those lists. So again, didn’t affect white people, so meh…and hurray as it keeps the power structure in tact.
Somewhere in there the U.S. Supreme Court gutted the Voters Right Act, making so much more voter suppression tactics legal. Or at least legal enough that Republicans immediately began passing laws, regulations, and policies to further erode the ease of voting for, any guesses, people of color.
Now we have the Big Lie that is being perpetuated essentially 24/7, even more barriers to voting being erected, and to top it all off, the U.S. Supreme Court again came out against protecting one’s right to vote.
Having our votes count, and even being able to cast a vote, is teetering on becoming a thing of the past, especially if you are not a white person living in a grand neighborhood.
All of this, all of it, being enacted because some old white people, and now I have to add a lot of younger white people can’t stomach they may not be in power for much longer. They have come to see the writing on the wall in terms of a future electorate that is not predominately white. The Republicans have nothing, absolutely nothing to offer that will make our lives better! This is why they are turning to suppressing the votes of millions of people instead of actually coming up with policies and ideas that will truly help all of the American people, not just the whites, and even more so, not just the rich, and then capture the vote of a majority of people.
The sad fact of it all is, who is going to stop them from turning us into a country similar to South Africa of the past?! The courts seem stacked against Democracy. State Legislatures seem staked against Democracy. Even Congress seems staked against Democracy (mainly because of the Filibuster).
Democrats just don’t seem to be able to get it together to effect lasting change on the voting scene. It almost always falls to one or two Democrats who stand in the way of progress. When Democrats win, they still lose. They haven’t learned to play hardball when needed, and they seem to live in fear of actually being able to lead and legislate when we need it the most, providing what we need the most. I sometimes wonder if they like playing the victim, woe is me, and we can’t do anything because of the system.
Well, right now they are the system. And if they can’t get it together, they will be the minority party again real soon, and then we are even more up the river.
What more can we do to save our great nation, and once great Democracy? How do we bring it back from the brink, and then secure it so never reaches this point again? Any great ideas?
I don’t want to be a frog who is cooked due to our own apparent lack of common and logical sense to get out of a hot pan. Do you?
Personal Reflections of a Middle-Aged Man 