At some point in my life I was clearly defined as liberal. Not screamingly so but certainly well defined in any sort of normative state. Against the death penalty, pro choice, anti war. Pretty standard stuff and as such, a Democrat. Through Nixon, LBJ, Viet Nam, civil rights movement; all of the usual markers in understanding that there was a clear distinction between my politics and the politics of my Republican friends.
That time seems forever ago and what has replaced it seems impossible to reconcile with until I remember the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 1968. The brutality of that summer in that city seems to hew closely to today. Our own National Guard pushing protesters through plate glass windows while the crowd chanted “the whole world’s watching” in one of the great cities of the US was a sign of things to come. A divided country pitting us against each other while congress sat and watched, content in their privilege and to hell with the country.
There was an accounting for many of them and the repercussions of those times changed a lot of things so why can’t that happen again? That’s what helps me sleep, keeps me awake at night but in my heart I am that person that clings to that. Emily Dickinson idea of hope as “that thing with feathers”.
On the bus again this morning and not seeing the raindrops but the flowers yet to come.
May it be so.
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