This Just In – In the famed Chinese curse, we are doomed to living in “interesting times.” Last summer the times seemed dull, then through a series of unfortunate events, the presidential race got interesting. Very interesting.
Normally on Independence Day I re-watch the delightful musical “1776.” It takes me right back to the night that my late mother saw the movie in the theater and came home singing “Sit down, John!”. Anything that would animate my mother like that had to be special. Indeed, it is.
This year, I may need more tissues. The times are more than interesting. They’re alarming and not just because the MAGA party is going to (at all costs) pass a ridiculous bill that will slash Medicaid and SNAP. Not just because elected representatives are afraid to vote in a way that they know is right. Not just because they’re repeatedly lying about what they’re doing.
Let me pause right here to say that our Senator, Thom Tillis, made a righteous decision to announce his retirement and (with the attention of the media captured) took to the Senate floor to blast this outrageous, corrupt bill, designed to loot the treasury and achieve nothing else.
Thank you, Senator Tillis, for freeing yourself from the cult that your party has become. I’d appreciate it much more if you and Senators Murkowski, Paul and Collins would simply dump your party affiliation and become Independents, declaring that you’d caucus with the Democrats for the rest of your terms. This would be a tectonic shift done for patriotic reasons and would not soon be forgotten.
Imagine that.
When I watch “1776” I’m reminded of the great courage of these people. Our current president doesn’t seem to know the events that led to the Declaration of Independence much less to which war it related. The fact is, though, the document didn’t trigger a war. It had been raging for more than a year prior to that fateful day in Philadelphia.
The odds against the colonists were impossible. They were trying to do what most of us are trying to do today – make their own way, build a good life, leave something better for their descendants. Taxation without representation … that was their beef.
Is it so different for us? We want to pay reasonable taxes, but we want representation. There is absolutely no evidence that anything close to most Americans supports the idea of gutting Medicaid or nutritional support for poor children. We want to keep the hurricane forecasters on the job and have no interest in eliminating the various protections we pay for from food safety to financial disclosures and deposit insurance.
We have a great big problem, though, that seems to get too little attention. The head of the executive branch shows signs of serious dementia every day. He continues to state that gas is “down to $1.99 in five states” with no challenge from reporters in the room, who should be asking “which five?”
This week, while in Florida to visit the detention center slapped together in the everglades (dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz”), Trump was asked for a timeframe for those detained there. Though a simple question, he asked for clarification. He got it, then he answered by blathering on for about two uninterrupted minutes about how he lives in Florida and enjoys it there … that he’ll be spending lots of time there, of course.
Again, no follow-up with “Sir, I’m asking about the detainees, not you.” This is not a rare senior moment. This happens every day and is deserving of coverage and investigation because the president is not fit for this job. Some of this is the result of a lifetime of BSing his way through situations to get what he wants, but a lot of this is easily recognized dementia. Covering, distracting, lashing out, inability to conjure the word he’s looking for and bullying anyone who raises their hand to point these things out.
A mad king is one of the very things our ancestors dared to break away from 250 years ago. We owe it to them to keep this republic for which they stood.
Hundreds of protesters marched at Halifax Mall in Raleigh as part of the nationwide “Stand Up For Science” initiative.
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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