This Just In – If you enjoy the blessing of combing grey hair, you’ve probably been to a few protests to try to end an unjust war. That’s where you’d hear the classic call and response:
“What do we want?”
Peace!
“When do we want it?”
Now!
America flexed its muscle last Saturday with an estimated five million people of every demographic description taking peacefully to the streets to singularly reject the theft of democracy.
People gather on the lawn of the Orange County historic courthouse in downtown Hillsborough for the “No Kings” rally on Saturday, June 14. (Chapel Hill Media Group.)
As the president sat through his poorly attended and utterly pathetic military parade, we stated at our case. We demanded our right to speak. We pushed back. Hard.
So now comes the key question for our nation and our community. What do we want?
A modest proposal … we want the following and yes, we want it right now:
A Constitutional Republic, governed by and for its people.
How do we secure this? We do it by demanding due process and the rule of law, without exception. Without fear. Without favor.
As a practical matter what this means for what happens next is not simply shaking our fists and demanding the President‘s compliance through public pressure. It is to flood the phones in the hallways in the offices of our elected representatives and demand that they do their job.
Members of Congress know that what’s going on with the president is wildly, corrupt and illegal. From kidnapping and rendition to egregiously receiving bribes in broad daylight, the Republicans in the House and the Senate know with certainty that if a Democrat were in the White House right now doing the same things, he would have been (rightly) impeached and removed.
They protect this president because in doing so they are, they believe, protecting their own power base. When they believe that their power can only be retained by holding this president accountable, they might act.
If they don’t, five million Americans in the streets on Saturday should have made clear that they will be the ones to be sent home. On this Juneteenth, we have to look squarely at where we are as a nation.
The President of the United States is unfit for duty. Yesterday, he motioned toward the display of the Declaration of Independence in the Oval Office and said that many wars are started “over nothing” and that this founding document is an example of that … having launched the Civil War which, he says, should have been prevented though a negotiated settlement.
Yes, he confused the Revolutionary War with the Civil War and asserted again that those combatants should have made a deal. He’s not up to this job and we have to figure out how the American people, with the ultimate power to run this sovereign nation, are going to manage him out. We must take the keys away. It’s not safe to let him drive, literally or metaphorically.
Being at the march on Saturday was energizing. It reinforced my feeling that most of us are just trying to get things done for our families and community. We’re trying to pay for the groceries, get the kids to soccer practice, maybe take a vacation this summer. We’re generally NOT consumed with contempt for people who don’t vote the same way we do and we want our elections everywhere to be run as well as they are in Orange County.
We want red lights to stop drivers at intersections. We will wait our turn and hold the door open for anyone who needs help. We’re fair in general and generous in helping our neighbors. Americans are good people. We deserve fair leadership.
Jean Bolduc is a freelance writer and the host of the Weekend Watercooler on 97.9 The Hill. She is the author of “African Americans of Durham & Orange Counties: An Oral History” (History Press, 2016) and has served on Orange County’s Human Relations Commission, The Alliance of AIDS Services-Carolina, the Orange County Housing Authority Board of Commissioners, and the Orange County Schools’ Equity Task Force. She was a featured columnist and reporter for the Chapel Hill Herald and the News & Observer.
Readers can reach Jean via email – [email protected] and via Twitter @JeanBolduc
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This Just In: Call and Response Chapelboro.com.
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