Third Act

In the last No Kings Rally, my wife’s sign read “Trump is the worst President since Trump.” But now that sign needs to be amended: “Trump is even a worse President than Trump.” 

 

For during the first Regime of 2016, I hated everything about it but assured myself that hope lay in four freedoms more or less intact. When Hitler took power, he immediately shut down freedom of speech, elections, term limits. and the courts. None of that happened wholly in the First Act of Regime 1. Why did and why does that matter?

 

Freedom of speech guaranteed a balancing act whereby people could voice and hear and consider different, opposing, dissenting points of view to the leader’s agenda and not be threatened, punished or shut down. Schools could still teach history from multiple points-of-view, books could be read that raised important questions and exposed the Wizard behind the curtain pulling the ropes of manufactured consent. People could assemble in the streets without fear of undue police violence. All of that made a difference and allowed for some truth to be spoken amidst a blizzard of state-sanctioned and Fox media lies.  

 

Free and fair elections guaranteed that people could still speak with their vote, as they did when Biden defeated Trump in 2020. Despite gerrymandering, dubious voting machine and vote counting, big money buying up advertising space, laws making black people stand in line for hours in the hot sun and laws punishing people who would bring them water, voter registration drives could still make a difference. 

 

Term limits insured that no matter how horrible a leader, the country would only have to endure it for eight years and then there would be hope for a change. The actual history of the ping-pong game between the two parties in my lifetime— Kennedy/ Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Reagan/ Bush, Clinton, GW Bush, Trump, Biden, Trump has helped democracy and justice from going wholly off the rails. This is in direct contrast to dictatorships in Nazi Germany and Italy and current regimes in North Korea, China, Turkey, Iran and beyond.

 

Finally, the institution of the courts gave the possibility that leaders would be held accountable for their actions, that transgression of their Constitutional Oaths held consequences, that overstepping their duties (as in police murdering people) would be punished, that traitorous acts like the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection would land people in jail. 

 

In this Second Act, things have gotten much worse. Consider the signs.

 

1.   The networks cancelling Stephen Colbert. Schools mandated to stop teaching diverse points of view. More books banned. Big money buying up yet more media to serve the fascist agenda. Teachers or employees expressing their opinion about the Charlie Kirk murder getting fired. Two people gathering in the streets of Minnesota to exercise their right to peacefully dissent murdered by ICE agents. The list goes on. 

 

2.   Threats from above to cancel mid-term elections. New voter procedures designed to shut-out voters who disagree with the regime. Plans to have intimidating ICE agents at the polls. The move to ban or limit voting by mail. Continued gerrymandering. 

 

3.   Threats that there will be no election for a third term. 

 

4.   Immunity granted to the Fascist-in-Chief despite being found guilty of felonies on 42 counts. Constant attention-diversion away from the Epstein Files. The January 6^th crew pardoned and released from jail. No accountability for the ICE agent or further police murders. The list goes on. 

 

I’m no political analyst. I’d much rather spend all my mental, emotional and physical energy as a teacher nurturing and cultivating tender young souls to blossom into kind, caring, loving and intelligent future citizens. I’d much rather keep up my little attempt to express myself artistically as a musician. I’d much rather keep digging down to the roots of spiritual promise through meditation and walks in the natural world. But I also recognize that these threats to our well-being and our freedom to pursue things that help rather than harm people are real and can’t be ignored. I have to deal with them and do what it takes to help turn them around. And so do we all.

 

Fresh from witnessing the energy of the third massive No Kings Rally, I feel encouraged that the play is not over. There is a Third Act coming that will shift the drama from a Tragedy, a Farce, a not-funny Comedy, to a story of redemption, rising up, healing and hope. We are all the screenwriters and we’re all needed onstage. Let’s go.