There’s a delusional egotist, er, narcissist, in the White House. Americans are at loggerheads with one another, families are divided. Our military is being ordered to attack the very people they exist to protect. Congress turns a blind eye. Officials in many branches of government are serving an elected official rather than the Constitution to whom they swore their oaths.
It sounds like today, but it was 1970.
The Ohio State National Guard shot and killed four unarmed college student protesters and wounded nine others, also unarmed. At the time, the song, although it performed well on the charts, did not make a big impact. Polls showed that people blamed the fallen peaceful protesters rather than the armed soldiers who mowed them down. In the 1972 presidential election, Richard Nixon would win a landslide victory, including winning by 20+ points in Ohio. Yet, as former President Obama is fond of telling us, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” This song found its arc.
Times marched forward and Nixon, in his hubris, ended up being caught up in the Watergate cover up. He resigned rather than face the music. From the solitude of his California home he had the chance to redefine his legacy, but instead he doomed it by his interview with David Frost as he uttered these words, “Well, when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.” Sound like anyone we know? Orange? In the Oval Office? Sure, Trump is in power… now. America is divided…now. We’ve been divided before, many times, and we overcame the division each time. We found one another again and we resolved to do better. I pray (and I am not usually the praying type) that our better selves, our own angels wake up and realize that we are the power. We have the power to stop this. Find your voice. Find your resolve. We will return to a government such as Lincoln saw even during the ruin of the Civil War. He described a government of the people, by the people and for the people. That’s us.
Resolve to do better. Better is also US.
