Seize this day

This is our 4th of July. This is our democracy. Nobody is going to take it from us.

It was only three days ago that six justices on the Supreme Court handed down a decision that most legal experts agree eviscerated the Voting Rights Act of 1965.  One commentator after another opined that the court “opened the door” to the kinds of voter suppression laws that are either awaiting passage in states around the country or have already been passed.  More than one newspaper headline or cable news chryon lamented that our democracy is under threat.  I even indulged in a little hand wringing myself.

Well, fuck that.

Against enormous odds and in defiance of a recalcitrant “solid South,” Lyndon Johnson pushed through the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act more than 55 years ago.  He predicted that the Democratic Party would lose the South forever, and he was right.  Republicans, many from the red states of the so-called solid south, have been nibbling away at those laws ever since.  The Supreme Court decision of last Thursday is just the latest blow they suffered.

But we’re still here.  We just had an election when more than 80 million of us turned out in the midst of the worst pandemic in a hundred years to cast their votes to put a good man in the White House, and we did it.  The American flag flies today over a White House that represents all of us, and we can be proud of that fact. We put Joe Biden there with the expectation that he would be the same good and decent man he’s always been, and that he would make us proud.

He has done that, and as we celebrate the 4th of July, the evidence is all around us. 

Look at the job numbers from last week.  Businesses that fell into despair over the pandemic and the pandemonium and chaos in the White House last year have greeted Biden’s approach to both the virus and the economy with open arms.  They’re hiring.  Towns and cities are reopening.  People are going out to listen to music, to dinner, to ball parks and racetracks and now even to at least one Broadway theater.  The economy isn’t just recovering, it is beginning to boom.

Look at how our president acted when he visited Surfside Florida and the families who lost loved ones in the building collapse over a week ago.  His steadiness and competence and compassion was reassuring to everyone.  We elected him to do exactly what he did on Friday, and he did it. 

The leaders of the countries in the G-7 reacted the same way when Biden flew to Europe to meet with them and to meet with leaders of the European Union.  He represented this country with dignity, the way an American president should.  You could hear barely their collective sigh of relief because our own sign of relief was so loud.  The whole world has been waiting to hear the American president confirm that we take climate change seriously and that we are going to act to address it.  The whole world has been waiting to hear the American president confirm that we stand by our mutual defense pacts and treaties and that we will act that way. 

The whole world has been waiting to hear the American president say that we are a democracy and we will stand with our fellow democracies against authoritarian regimes and tyranny.  We are standing up with them.  We mean it, and they know it. 

The world is a better place than it was six months ago because on this July 4th, we are celebrating not just our independence but our mutual dependence on each other as citizens and our dependence as a nation on other nations.  We don’t stand alone.  We are not just in this for ourselves.  We are not looking out for number one.  We are looking out for all of us.

We’ve dealt with bad diseases and bad policies and bad laws and bad court decisions before.  We know the way.  We get together and we stay together and we stand up for our beliefs and we act on them.  Now we have a president who is in it with us.  When we suffer setbacks, we gather our strength and drive on.  When we enjoy victories, we share them.  We celebrate who we are as a people and we do it proudly and loudly.

On this 4th of July, we stand tall for our freedoms.  This is our country, all of us, and no one is going to take it away from us.