What will we be like – what will this nation be like – on the other side?
One day, this COVID-19 business will be over. One day, thousands and thousands of dead will have been mourned. The sick will be well. Hospital operations will return to normal. Doctors and nurses will work usual schedules. The feelings of fear will be calmed. What will it be like?
One day, the Congress of these fractious states will return to the business of legislating for the people instead of the current divided, do-nothing, look-the-other-way creature we have now. The needs of the citizens of the 50 states will, again, become the substance of hearings that result in answers rather than stonewalling. What will it be like?
Truth is, no one – not one – can answer the question of what this nation will look like in 2025 and thereafter. The recent years of failed governance – coupled with a worldwide pandemic – have twisted, pulled, strangled, tortured and severely injured our Republic.
Corporate, ultra-conservative front organizations like ALEC – American Legislative Exchange Council – have flooded state legislatures with carbon-copy bills authored by – and dedicated to the benefit of – big business and the ultra-right.
Citizen needs have been ignored by attempts to legislate morality and citizenship as promulgated by evangelical groups and others who believe it’s their right to determine how this nation should live. When their loud, fanatical, divisive voices are stilled, what will this country become?
The plain fact is those promoting division – with racist, jingoistic, lying – have been more successful separating us, one-from-the-other, than the virtues of patriotism and inclusion that usually have kept us together. When we needed to reach out to our brothers and sisters, we were warned “they can’t be trusted because they don’t look like us.” “They speak foreign languages,” or “They’ll take our jobs” or “threaten to undermine what has always been the majority” – read “White Christian majority.”
The last couple of decades – especially the last four years – there’ve been strains on our nation and its governance. What we’ve witnessed – what we’re living through – has been a time of internal national struggle, involving all our fundamental institutions and beliefs.
The process of a return to stability, re-establishing trust in our institutions and re-creating a functioning government does not start at the top. It starts at the bottom. It starts with us. Everyone. No matter the skin color. No matter the nation of birth. No matter the religious practices. No matter who.
Some of us won’t be around to see how it all works out. The nature of things – the process – is to hand over responsibilities to the next generation. After the Civil War – after two world wars – that process included expansion. Expansion of territory. Expansion of housing. Expansion of rights. Expansion of all the things those wars had been fought to protect.
The difference now is expansion must be accompanied by inclusion. Inclusion of race and nationality. Everywhere. Inclusion of a new direction for government and institutions, accepting differing religions and other human practices so we may proceed as a unified nation.
Voices of division and mistrust must be stilled. Voices of building, of getting together – of everyone sharing in what comes next – should be amplified in commerce, in politics, in religion and in changing national institutions.
What will it look like? No one knows. But, we need to get started.
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