I suspect many of you follow the daily postings of Heather Cox Richardson, a Professor of History at Boston College (which really is a university, not a college). If you do not, start today. You can get to her most recent posting by CLICKING HERE.
Richardson
But even if you don't stop to read it right now, here is how she closes this posting. This is "must reading" because for the first time, Professor Richardson opens up the possibility that "American democracy is over." It is the first time she has sounded pessimistic.
"I started out tonight by noting that this chaotic onslaught of
news is designed to divide Americans and make us fall back into old animosities
in order either to get us to accept a strong leader or to exhaust us until we
quit caring what happens. In either case American democracy is over.
But there is another possibility. Chaos does not have to destroy
us. The leaders creating it are doing so precisely because they know they are
not in control, and the same uncertainty they are trying to leverage can just
as easily be used by their opponents. At this crazy, frightening, chaotic
moment, it is possible to reach across old lines and create new alliances, to
reemphasize that most Americans really do share the same values of economic
fairness and equality before the law, and to rebuild a “government of the
people, by the people, and for the people.” The old world is certainly dying, but the shape of the new world
struggling to be born is not yet determined."
Permit me to add that solutions to the Pandemic are needed, but also, we MUST find solutions to the deeply engrained socio-economic problems manifesting themselves on the streets of Minneapolis and elsewhere as a result of one tragic incident ... in a series of many occuring nationwide since the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment and more recent civil rights legislation. How deeply committed to that are you? Really.
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