The List

Crisis

We are a nation in crisis.  Look at the list:

• January 6^th
• Inflation 
• Ukraine
• Baby Formula
• Guns – Guns – Guns
• Roe v Wade
• Policing and Crime.

Oh and there’s still the Covid 19 virus around.  Over 1,033,000 deaths since the beginning, and still averaging 320 deaths a day.  That’s almost as many people as get shot with a gun per day here in the US (321 daily), with 111 deaths.  More young people (children and adolescents) die from gun violence than any other cause including car accidents.  That’s far above disease, poisoning and drug overdoses.

Add China, the Southern Border, LGBTQ rights, and a host of other issues, and you can see why most US Presidents age quickly.  President Biden has more than just a few things on his plate.  

With all of that, the hope is that the American people will vote for solutions, not slogans.  The question that needs to be asked in the November election, is how the candidates are going to make things better, not what “wedge” they can drive into the body politic.

The Issues

January 6^th, the Insurrection, is not behind us.  The forces at work to overthrow our Democracy remain at large, and, in fact, they are still working to achieve their goal.  Until we have an accounting of what really happened and why, we won’t “get over” it.  In fact, those demanding we ignore it, are simply enabling those who see Democracy as an impediment to their gaining power.  

Inflation is bad, because it strikes us all.  Gas went over $5 a gallon yesterday here in Central Ohio; groceries are up, in fact, everything that “got here” costs more because it cost more to “get here”.  If the cost of gas is the fault of the Ukraine War, then Americans should and will bear the burden.  But that case isn’t clearly made by anybody, not by the President, nor the Congress, nor the “pundits”.   

And the baby formula crisis seemed to come, literally, out of nowhere.  It’s being resolved, but that message isn’t getting through either.  What should be a triumph of government intervention and ingenuity, is portrayed as a “fumble” in government prevention.  And all because a plant put out contaminated product, and that plant provided a huge portion of the supply of formula.  That also is a case of “bad” messaging by the current administration.

Guns-Guns-Guns

America is cursed;  cursed with a history of gun use, exacerbated by a political crisis where a portion of the nation see unlimited gun rights as a sign of unlimited freedom.  What they give up is their right to “life”, or more exactly, as the statistics show, their children’s right to life.  It is the worst public health crisis of our era, worse than Covid 19.  But, just like Covid masks, guns are so politicized that even common sense doesn’t prevail.  

You can’t drink until your twenty-one, you can’t rent a car until your twenty-five, you can’t even own a pistol until your twenty-one.  But you can buy an assault type rifle at eighteen.  That’s just the age where disaffected, mentally unstable young men, look to become “heroes” on the trigger of a gun.  There are simple solutions, but even those are embroiled in the political theatre created by the gun lobby and the right wing politicians.

Cars don’t kill people, people driving cars kill people.  Yet we regulate every facet of car ownership, from the purchase, registration and sale of the vehicle, to the training, licensing a and supervising of the drivers.  But an assault rifle; its only use being for protection or destruction, is virtually unregulated, unlicensed, and unchecked.  What sense does that make?

Choices

Our nation is at an inflection point.  We have one political party that sees America as it was in the 1950’s, a white majority in charge, a “Leave it to Beaver” utopia, that never really existed.  The leadership of that party is willing to sacrifice our greatest virtue, Democracy, in order to gain power.

And we have one political party, fumbling, brawling, unfocused, charging in multiple directions; that at least has a vision of a future that includes a diverse Democratic society.  This is the choice that faces America in 2022 and 2024.  It’s really that simple.  And it’s really that desperate.