Enemy of the People
Last week, Trump was convicted by a jury of his peers. That is how democracy works. It is slow, painful, and frustrating, but that is the system we have for the privilege of living here. We move forward as a nation yet are constantly being battered around by legislation that gets in the way, but time is part of the whole gestalt.
There are countless decisions that I will never understand, such as the Supreme Court allowing PACS, which have become the largest tool for putting money in political pockets from the wealthy and powerful. I won’t understand rolling back Roe V. Wade. I do not understand why we continue to use lies to prop up our horrific history instead of coming to terms with it so we can heal and move forward. I do not understand legislation that doesn’t move us forward as a country but keeps us back. These are just a few.
What I do understand is our system works better than any other system in the globe. We have one of the largest GNP’s in the world, although not run perfectly, it does work. I do believe in our legal system, although we have done countless things wrong in our past that have destroyed Black communities in our country by putting people in jails for crimes they have not committed. Thankfully DNA has changed much but not completely.
We have not found enough white collar people accountable for their crimes so when a jury of someones peers, who supposedly happens to be a wealthy powerful white man, comes to the conclusion of guilty on 34 felony counts, that says something about the facts. I applaud these extremely brave jurors knowing what kind of crazy people are out there who would go after them for their decision, yet they all came to the same conclusion based on the facts. Also, Trump has never said he didn’t do it, he just believes he should be able to.
History is always interesting as it leads us to where we are today, every day. I do wonder about the people in our countries past that were on the wrong side of the future. How do the grandchildren or relatives of those people feel about seeing that their grandparents were the ones yelling violently in the faces of the black students entering white schools? The people behind George Wallace? Slave owners? Klu Klux clansmen? Families who did not embrace gay family members? How do those relatives feel about that?
They were all on the wrong side of history, because if you look at our country now, many of these issues although still hanging over our heads, will hopefully at one point be moot. These are historical shifts in our countries social context.
Back to this Trump thing. There are countless wealthy people in our country who have publicly said, prior to the verdict this past week, that they will get behind him and give millions to his campaign. Will that change? Do they truly believe that they are going to be on the right side of history? How do their children feel about that? Regardless of him and his policies, they are now supporting a Presidential candidate who has been convicted, by a jury of his peers for 34 felony counts. It isn’t a big lift to ask yourself, am I missing some red flags here?
This past weekend, we went to see Enemy of the People, a play written by Ibsen in 1882. It could have been written today. Ibsen certainly questioned democracy. The play centers around truth over public opinion. Sound familiar? (BTW, the play is fantastic)
As the play ended, I thought we all know where this goes. Spoiler alert. An entire community turned against the scientist who wanted to tell the truth, because the powerful money manipulated the truth for their own needs. How did those peoples grandchildren think about what the naysayers did to their town by ignoring the truth?
Will the powerful money continue to toss money and power behind a convicted felon? Does history teach us anything? Who is really the Enemy of the People? It might just be ourselves.