Taking it back

I want to take back my country, too, from those who think it is time to end democracy in favor of a return to elite minority rule.

Walking home from our farmer’s market this morning, I saw a banner at a neighbor’s house, promoting returning the 45th president to office. It said “Take America Back.”

From whom? I wonder.

Who does this neighbor believe has illegitimately “taken” this country? I’ll wager it’s not the fossil fuel companies the candidate promoted on that banner has promised to release from regulation, provided they give him enough money in his campaign. The fossil fuel companies whose products are destroying the habitability of our planet in exchange for record profits.

I imagine it’s not the Justices on the Supreme Court who take outrageous gifts as they strip the American people of basic reproductive rights, or show support for a “biblical republic” despite the Constitution and Declaration’s commitment to a non-religious state.

I’m guessing it’s not the billionaire class who cry poverty whenever their fortunes are the subject of potential tax increases, while they take the windfalls of the 2017 tax cuts for stock buybacks and other schemes to increase their value on paper. Nor the few in the top one percent of wealth who control as much wealth as everyone in the bottom fifty percent.

No, this neighbor has likely swallowed the narrative that the country is in the control of “liberals” who insist on full inclusion and protection of LGBTQ+ folk, who want legitimate paths to citizenship for immigrants, who demand safer schools and communities with fewer assault weapons, who want to protect access to full reproductive care as guided by physicians with the best interests of their patients at heart, who are loud in their insistence that a plural, inclusive, complex, multicultural democracy offers the best chance for everyone to thrive.

Dangerous indeed, these ideas of equality. Those who wrote the Declaration and the Constitution knew they were dangerous ideas, threatening the status quo of power, status, and wealth. They were limited in their imagination of just how thoroughly equality before the law would transform society - but they launched this imperfect, incomplete project anyway.

And here we are, facing a decision of who best to elect to keep the project moving forward, with one candidate bragging about their intention to end it. I want to take back my country, too, from those who think it is time to end democracy in favor of a return to elite minority rule. And I hope you’ll join me in this commitment.

Be safe and well, and keep the project going.