There’s a meme going around depicting demonstrators as cry babies. If we are crying, it is not because we lost, but for:
The families of the Jews buried in peace whose graves are being desecrated because of the empowerment of the worst racists in our society at the highest levels;
The families of the Indian men murdered in cold blood last week by a man screaming ‘get out of my country’ with no response from the White House for a week other than a nonsensical evasion of any responsibility for enabling hate;
The disgrace of following up in the White House one of the finest class acts we have ever had in this country with a petulant, selfish embarrassment;
The thought of all of the families of ordinary farm and culinary workers from Latin America worrying that any day they will be ‘disappeared’ from their homes without warning, with their children left helpless and alone in their own homes, their only ‘crime’ being coming to our country to do back-breaking work that Americans will not do;
The embarrassment and shame of becoming a country that stops and detains people in our airports – like the son of Muhammed Ali – because of their religion, in direct violation of our Constitution and our values;
The shameless assault on the free press and very idea of truth, facts, and science; and
Finally, because the American dream is being attacked and replaced with an ideology of resentment and hate that is not the America we love.
The demonstrators are not there to express themselves. They are there to tell the powers that be that they will not be passive in the face of lawlessness and hatred, and they will not cooperate in the dismantling of a country based on e pluribus unum- out of many, one.
