It was great to take a break from our weary world to celebrate our youngest daughter’s wedding in Santa Barbara. We are still floating on air from several perfect days preparing and celebrating. Well, almost perfect–the groom’s parents got notice of a planned lengthy power outage that would affect their kick-off dinner and family lodging. As usual, though, they scrambled to rearrange things before nightfall, and carried on with good humor and grace:

You’d also have to overlook the slight imperfection of the newlyweds getting slammed with Covid three days after the wedding. The groom’s father’s toast included an homage to wise decisions, like choosing the right person to marry. Going to an indoor bar for an after party after a week of little sleep? Less wise. But bride and groom are recovering nicely, and will have better hybrid immunity for their planned September honeymoon.

All the rest? Pure bliss.

Let’s start with what’s important: Baked goods. Fans of Shrinkrapped may remember that I have been coping with depressing world events by throwing myself down the cupcake rabbit hole, living in a parallel universe of cheerful YouTube videographers with their frosting and cake topper techniques. Upon arriving in Santa Barbara, we set up Baking Central, with good results:

Oh, wait–this is about my daughter’s wedding, not about my fantasy bakery! That rabbit hole is pretty alluring. Onto the Welcome Party, with hilarious toasts by friends, a great taco truck, and picnic tables overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Here’s my daughter, true to character:

It would be hard to top the Welcome Party fun, but Wedding Day itself was up to the task, starting with the happy couple saying goodbye so they could get ready in separate quarters:

Now for the real deal:

And the best part–dancing!

The morning after:

I spent part of the Fourth of July catching up on the January 6 hearings. I can think of no greater display of patriotism than the solemn undertaking of the bipartisan commission to uncover and brilliantly explain the attempt to overturn the 2020 election. The treachery of Donald Trump, his fellow coup architects, and his vast cadre of GOP enablers is clear. As conservative retired judge Michael Luttig testified, they pose a clear and present danger.

The number of witnesses from the GOP and Trump World implicating the former president and his allies has been riveting and effective. Cassidy Hutchinson especially has torpedoed the whole cabal, including her former boss, Mark Meadows.

Then there are the House commission members themselves. They are to a person solemn, dignified, articulate, and clear, forsaking political grandstanding to build a devastating account of the truth. It is especially heartening to see Representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, two honorable Republican patriots who have sacrificed their careers to defend and protect democracy. In her opening remarks during the first session, Cheney said:

Tonight, I say this to my Republican colleagues who are defending the indefensible: There will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain.

Cheney has been a guiding light throughout the hearings. So has Republican Adam Kinzinger, who said in Session 5:

A big reason I decided to run for Congress was my motivation to ensure freedom and democracy were defended overseas.

I remember making a commitment . . . that if we are going to ask Americans to be willing to die in service to our country, we as leaders must at least be willing to sacrifice our political careers when integrity and our oath requires it. After all, losing a job is nothing compared to losing your life.

Within the halls of power, in the face of a president, that commitment can easily be forgotten. Presidential pressure can be really hard to resist. Today we’ll focus on a few officials who stood firm against President Trump’s political pressure campaign. When the president tried to misuse the [Department of Justice] and install a loyalist at its helm, these brave officials refused and threatened to resign.

They were willing to sacrifice their careers for the good of our country.

By contrast, Kinzinger noted that Trump “was willing to sacrifice our republic to prolong his presidency.” He continued:

I can imagine no more dishonorable act by a president. We owe a great debt of gratitude to these men you’ve heard from here today, real leaders who stood for justice when it was in grave peril, who put their country first. When the leader of the free world demanded otherwise, they threatened to resign rather than corrupt our democracy. And thanks largely to each of them, President Trump’s coup failed.

Salutes as well to the many others who did their duty and are too numerous to name. But a special shout-out to Shaye Moss and her mother Ruby Freeman, two Georgia election workers whose lives have been threatened and upended by the vicious smear campaign against them simply because they did their jobs.

Even Bill Barr and Mike Pence, two of Trump’s biggest enablers, did the right thing when the chips were down. For his troubles, the Vice President was threatened by an angry mob wanting to string him up on the gallows they’d erected outside the Capitol.

Which brings us to the traitors, especially those at the top: Trump, Mark Meadows, John Eastman, and many others too numerous to name. Let’s throw in the non-insurrectionist but extremely dangerous and Supreme-Court-seat-stealing Mitch McConnell for good measure.

I abhor mob rule and the death penalty. Besides, hanging’s too good for them. Instead, there’s the rule of law, hopefully Merrick Garland, and what Adam Kinzinger urged in his closing remarks:

As it’s said, the only thing necessary for evil to succeed is good men to do nothing. Thankfully, there were good people in the Department of Justice. You heard from other good people too on Tuesday. They too defended us. But I’m still worried that not enough has changed to prevent this from happening again.

The oath that we take has to mean something. It has to cut to the core of who we are and be the driving force of our service to this nation. We on this committee, we may be able to shine light on the darkness, but that is not enough.

It’s now up to every American, now and in the future, to stand for truth, to reject the lies wherever we confront them. And our towns, and our capitals, and our friendships, and our families, and at the ballot box, and within our own minds and hearts.

It is up to all of us to be good people who do something. Let’s get to work.

“The inescapable conclusion is that a right to abortion is not deeply
rooted in the nation’s history and traditions.” — Justice
Samuel Alito

You know what is deeply rooted in the nation’s history and traditions? Slavery and the subjugation of women, particularly Black women.

The reckless Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v Wade has triggered chaos, despair, and rage across America. It holds many parallels to the Civil War era:

States’ rights. By returning abortion decisions to states, Kavanaugh disingenuously claims “scrupulous neutrality.” But “states’ rights” was the fig leaf behind which slavery hid. Letting states decide for themselves meant powerful white men could enslave Black people. Right now, “states rights” is the fig leaf behind more than half of U.S. states’ severely restricting abortion or banning it altogether in an obliteration of women’s rights.

Lack of bodily autonomy. Enslaved people were considered property—they could be bought, sold, brutalized, starved, raped, forced into labor. Being forced into the labor of carrying, birthing, and raising or surrendering a child is also enslavement.

Not even second-class citizens. Enslaved people were explicitly prohibited from citizenship until the 14^th amendment was ratified in 1868. Women, even white women, fared just as poorly, with no property, voting, employment rights, or even the ability to get a credit card until well into the 20^th century.

The Fugitive Slave Act. Passed in 1850, this act required that enslaved people be returned to their enslavers, even if they were in a free state. Right now, we are witnessing the mind-boggling swiftness and reach of anti-choice states going after women and anyone who helps them even if they travel to states where abortion is legal.

Jia Tolentino of The New Yorker warns of a totalitarian and technological twist to today’s vicious pursuits:

“We have entered an era . . .  of widespread state surveillance and
criminalization—of pregnant women, certainly, but also of doctors and pharmacists and clinic staffers and volunteers and friends and family members, of anyone who comes into meaningful contact with a pregnancy that does not end in a healthy birth.

In the states where abortion has been or will soon be banned, any pregnancy loss past an early cutoff can now potentially be investigated as a crime. Search histories, browsing histories, text messages, location data, payment data, information from period-tracking apps—prosecutors can examine all of it if they believe that the loss of a pregnancy may have been deliberate. Even if prosecutors fail to prove that an abortion took place, those who are investigated will be punished by the process, liable for whatever might be found.”

 

“Let the people decide.” Which people? Throughout most of our history, Black people and women couldn’t vote. A minority of powerful white men called the shots. Today, minority rule dominates as well, thanks to the Electoral College, the filibuster, gerrymandering, a breath-taking array of new voter suppression laws, and two stolen Supreme Court seats. The Senate is split 50-50, but the Democratic half represents 41,549,808 more people than the Republican half. Huge majorities of Americans favor retaining Roe v Wade, but are helpless to exercise their formerly protected rights in the slave states of Gilead.

The minority dissent in Dobbs by Justices Breyer, Sotomayor, and
Kagan, is crystal clear: “Whatever the exact scope of the coming laws, one result of today’s decision is certain: the curtailment of women’s rights, and of their status as free and equal citizens.”

“Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone?” – Joni Mitchell

It was 2016, and I was phone banking into Nevada for the presidential election. “Do you know if you’re planning on voting for Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump in November?” I asked the man who answered the phone.

“I think they’re both morons, but I’m a conservative and I want conservative judges so I’m voting for Trump!” he replied before slamming down the phone.

I had to admire his strategic clarity. If only those who support abortion rights were so fervent and clear-sighted! Now, after death by a thousand cuts whittled away access for decades, the right-wing Supreme Court seems poised to deliver the final blow, erasing 50 years of a constitutional right supported by a large majority of Americans.

But the Supreme Court was really lost in 2016, when Mitch McConnell got away with stealing an open seat from President Obama, liberals were not as motivated to vote as Nevada Guy was, Hillary Clinton lost in the electoral college, and RBG lost her gamble that she could outlive cancer and Donald Trump.

Now those of us who cherish the right to choose have lost even more.

Opponents of reproductive rights have fanatically pursued their agenda for decades. Alas, proponents have not matched their zeal–until now. SCOTUS’s expected evisceration of Roe v Wade is the wake-up call that’s finally mobilized millions of Americans who support the right to choose. There’s nothing like fear and anger to motivate voting.

No doubt the SCOTUS leaked draft will be tidied up before its official release. But it’s impossible to mask the stench of this radical decision, which threatens not only the right to control one’s own body, but so many other fundamental rights.

“Will this institution survive the stench that this creates in the public perception that the Constitution and its reading are just political acts?” Justice Sonia Sotomayer asked at the hearings for this case in December 2021. No.

It will take time to clear the air, regain the ground we have lost. But as Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson notes, “The only thing that can stop a bad politician with a vote is a good citizen with a vote.”

I entered the mental health profession at age 22 with a newly minted BA in English, a job scooping ice cream, no idea about my future, and time on my hands. When I saw a notice seeking volunteers for a local crisis hotline, I thought, “Why not, I’ve got nothing better to do?” 

I loved it immediately: the raw intimacy, the power of connection and presence, feeling like I made a difference. I was in awe of peoples’ dignity and capacities in the face of overwhelmingly grim circumstances.

Scooping ice cream is tasty and fun, but I had found my life’s work. So I decided to go to graduate school to become a therapist. Nearly four decades later, I’ve just retired, and offer these reflections.

As therapists we grapple with the age-old question: “Do people change, or do they remain the same?” Blessedly, we now live at a time when false binaries are called out. “Both/and” replaces the splits of “either/or.” The complexity of paradox is one of the extraordinary riches of being human, and of being a therapist.

A lot has changed in our field. In the extension classes I took to qualify for graduate school, “refrigerator mothers” were still being blamed for autism, with only a hint that perhaps they were getting a bad rap. Schizophrenia was seen in a similar light. Indeed, psychopathology was seen mostly as originating from intrapsychic or interfamilial conflict. Those are important factors, but advances in understanding how biology, neuroscience, trauma, attachment, and systemic social, racial, and economic injustices affect us have shifted the field to a more enlightened position. Intersubjective theory challenged concepts of therapeutic neutrality and the idea that analysts somehow functioned above the messy fray.

My own evolution as a therapist fits the paradox: the more I’ve changed, the more I’ve become myself.  The harsh psychoanalytic jury in my head has given way to greater trust in my instincts and personality. These, of course, are informed by theory and experience, but we fundamentally bring ourselves to the work. It is lovely to know, and appreciate, that self–its pitfalls and gifts. Although I often thought in my role as supervisor, “Do not try this at home” when I was unorthodox with my own clients (such as encouraging them to enlist mental voo-doo dolls as a way of honoring vengeful feelings), I cherished the freedom, authenticity, and confidence that I could tell the difference between acting out and engaging in a way that helped people become more self-accepting.

One of my consultants told me about a revered colleague who shied away from the many opportunities she was offered to teach and present at conferences. She said she didn’t really know that much—all she knew is that she sat and listened to people until she found something about them to fall in love with, and then they got better.

That seemed as wise as anything I had ever heard. The more I was able to do it, the more I was able to recapture those early feelings of intimacy, connection, presence, and awe I’d felt on the crisis lines. Ineffable as our work is, it matters deeply. It changes us, therapist and client alike, as we come to discover and accept who we truly are, and that we are lovable.

I’ve always loved the movies. I have a vague memory of my first time—seeing Mary Poppins with my parents when I was nine. But what’s really etched in my mind is sneaking off with my fellow sixth graders two years later to make out in the back row of the theater. The thrill of this was somewhat dampened by the theater manager leaning disapprovingly on his elbows on the divider behind us the entire time. Note to hormonal pre-pubescents: do not sit in the back row if passion is your intent. What is a theater manager? you ask. What is making out? Never mind. Forget I said anything.

As a fast learner, I henceforth sat in the middle of the theater. At least that’s where my now-husband and I were on our second date. The Marriage of Maria Braun was on the screen. Or maybe it was something else. The only thing I remember was how electrified I felt by the man sitting beside me, who possessed considerably more expertise than a sixth-grader.

Of course, most of the time I’ve gone to the movies, I’ve been riveted by the action on the screen, not by blossoming romance. Either way, I’ve loved sitting in the darkened theater. It’s one of the things I thought I’d miss most during the pandemic.

But I didn’t, really—not with so much great stuff streaming, and the special effects, blow-everything-up lunacy of so many blockbusters (written, ironically, for an audience of sixth grade boys) that’s increasingly taken over movie theaters.

It was the Oscars that lured me back. I like to see all of the best-picture nominees, and West Side Story wasn’t available via streaming. Besides, it’s kind of a big-screen movie. So my husband and I donned our masks and went.

Unfortunately, we got the time wrong, so instead we saw Belfast, which we had to see anyway for our movie group. It was torture—a solid half hour of idiotic commercials and worse previews. When Belfast finally came on, we were baffled by the strong Irish accents, and realized how much we missed the at-home feature of turning on subtitles. My husband slept through most of it, and I wished I had, too. It was certainly not worth risking Covid for.

Still, timing our arrival to miss the ads and previews, I dragged my husband back to see West Side Story. I’m glad I did. Except for the badly miscast Tony, who looked straight out of a prep school or Calvin Klein underwear billboard, I loved the music, the dancing, the costumes—and my ability to watch without subtitles. Most of all, I loved recapturing the magic of being in a real theater, something I feared I’d never experience again.

Would the thrill of the Oscars also be restored this year? As Donald Trump might have said, “Come to the Dolby Theater on March 27—it’s going to be wild!”

It was certainly a spectacle, and that’s not even counting the slap heard round the world. As we emerge from the pandemic, people still haven’t figured out how to dress. Socks, shirts, pants were missing. Most of the women seemed outfitted by BoobsRUs: I have never seen so many tiny shelf bra cups supporting bloated orbs suspended above a wide swath of skin plunging to the waistline. Perhaps it was an homage to Fellini’s Amarcord, most memorable for a young boy being smothered by a ginormous bosom.

The Oscars certainly reflected the tenor of the times. Was it OK for Regina Hall to be woman-handling a set of hunky best-actor nominees? Would the exuberant display of diversity be enough to erase years of #oscarssowhite, or fuel yet another right-wing backlash? Would Zelensky be beamed in from his bunker in Kyiv? Or would he have to settle for some lame placards and an odd pitch for cryptocurrency donations? Would real and virtual reality successfully merge with pre-recorded acceptance speeches clumsily intercut, and are technical glitches as reliable as death and taxes? Why did there appear to be an exuberant Rave happening as the “In Memoriam” reel ran in the background? Was it a commentary about Partying On while nearly one million Americans are dead from Covid?

Of course, the night of random-but-off energy—often funny, sometimes not–culminated in an out-of-line joke and the even more out-of-line Slap (complete with some weirdly misogynistic self-aggrandizing ruminations about love and protection). All in all, the evening was replete with the quintessential truths of these times: we’ve forgotten how to be with one another, everyone is quietly unraveling, and, as Joe Biden can attest, going off script overshadows everything.

It was a night to remember. Mostly, I’ll be in my pajamas, streaming. But I’ll be back.

As if things aren’t bad enough, a minor celebrity from the Rodent Prognosticator World has met an untimely death. Yes, Milltown Mel of New Jersey, in what is surely a breach of contract, kicked the bucket right before getting hauled out to perform today’s duties. You can read about it here. I was first alerted to this tragedy through a link on yesterday’s Crooked Media‘s “What a Day” newsletter. Besides shedding a tear, I had to wonder: Is Crooked paying their intrepid researchers enough? How many others so diligently comb through humble, random Patch stories to bring you the latest news?

Diligent Shrinkrapped readers may recall that I have a thing for Groundhog Day, even going so far as proposing it become our national holiday. Milltown Mel’s demise only increases my certainty that the day captures something quintessentially American.

Like the craziness: It makes zero sense that we rely on disturbing hibernating rodents to forecast the duration of winter when there are a zillion microclimates in the U.S. Particularly when we can never remember whether the shadow means longer or shorter. Reminiscent of the insanity of our different election laws in a zillion places, Groundhog Day is obviously another example of federalism run amok.

Like the dangerous celebration of magical thinking: Sure, there’s Santa and all, but the risk of biting is low.

Like how counting on something turns into something you can’t really count on: Norms; the better angels of our nature; American Exceptionalism; Milltown Mel. Par for the course for another new year.

Like how Groundhog Day (especially the movie) channels the Zeitgeist: The last two-plus years have trapped us in an endless, repetitive cycle of Covid and mind-boggling politics. Again, why should 2022 be any different?

Milltown Mel has escaped that cycle. Good for you, Mel. RIP.

Recently, a Virginia parent stepped up to the microphone at her local school board meeting and threatened to come back with “loaded guns ready” if they voted to mandate masks in schools. In Texas after George Floyd’s murder, James Whitfield, a popular new Black principal, sent to the school community an uplifting and well-received email that acknowledged the existence of systemic racism. More than a year later, after the trumped-up scaremongering about Critical Race Theory took hold, Whitfield was fired. 

As noted by This American Life, which chronicles this and other stories in an episode called Talking While Black, “. . . the script has flipped. Public conversations have moved from let’s all try and understand and talk about systemic racism to let’s never mention systemic racism. . . . We went from anti-racist books crowding the bestsellers list to banning kids’ books about Rosa Parks.”

It’s happening everywhere, particularly at public school meetings. As Mike, an Afghanistan veteran, husband, father of three, and Down Home North Carolina member from rural Johnston County, puts it, “Why did everyone in my county just go crazy at the school board?”

First it was uproar over Critical Race Theory. Then masks and vaccines. More recently it’s been accusations about “pornography” in schools, targeting LGBTQ students. Mike notes, “Something that didn’t exist and was never a problem seemed to have been made into a problem.” His brothers, in two different parts of the country, see the same thing in their school districts.

There’s no question that the pandemic has created a crisis for parents, kids, teachers, staff, and education policymakers in schools throughout our increasingly polarized country.  But exploiting that pandemic stress and fomenting division for political gain is also a well-funded, organized, right-wing strategy. Christopher Rufo, the conservative activist and darling of Fox News most responsible for whipping up CRT hysteria, spells it out: “We have successfully frozen their brand—‘critical race theory’—into the public conversation and are steadily driving up negative perceptions. We will eventually turn it toxic, as we put all of the various cultural insanities under that brand category.”

In other words, as Michelle Goldberg writes in The New York Times, “people like Rufo have succeeded in turning critical race theory into a catchall term for discussions of race that conservatives don’t like.” Rufo revealed his true intent to Goldberg a few months later: “I’ve unlocked a new terrain in the culture war, and demonstrated a successful strategy . . . We are right now preparing a strategy of laying siege to the institutions.”

“In practice,” Goldberg then explains, “this means promoting the traditional Republican school choice agenda: private school vouchers, charter schools and home-schooling.” She quotes Rufo: “The public schools are waging war against American children and American families. Families, in turn, should have a fundamental right to exit.”

Or perhaps it’s an organized conservative push waging war on public education?

To Mike, the Down Home member, it certainly feels like something fishy is going on. Why else are people in his community suddenly going crazy, and why is Madison Cawthorn, the right-wing provocateur and a childless congressman from a district 300 miles away from Mike’s kids’ school, showing up at their local school board?

The right wing, capitalizing on their manufactured hysteria under the guise of promoting “parental rights,” is sowing division—and distracting attention away from real issues schools face–in communities across America. One such homespun-sounding group, “Moms for Liberty,” has strong ties to and gets funding from GOP elites and conservative organizations like the Heritage Foundation. As Media Matters notes about the group’s purported focus, “’Parental rights’ means strategically harassing public schools.”

Ultra-conservatives, continuing their years’ long assault on public education through systematic underfunding, are also pouring money into school board races across the country. Allen West, the Texan Republican who makes Governor Greg Abbott look like a liberal, notes: “The most important elected position in the United States of America is school board . . .The election to have the least amount of voter participation in the United States of America is the school board.” This latter point makes it easy to manipulate pandemic stress and stage a takeover.

Down Home’s Gwen Frisbie-Fulton describes the ground-level havoc: “We are pretty alarmed with what we are seeing here in North Carolina: Proud Boys showing up regularly in different counties to intimidate parents attending school board meetings, extremist groups approaching high schoolers outside their schools, QAnon candidates filing to run for office, a Stop the Steal participant being given a seat in our statehouse after the elected official passed away. . . The far-right wants to replicate Virginia’s ‘parental rights’ playbook in North Carolina, and we’re keeping an eye on it.”

Down Home is doing a lot more than that. In collaboration with North Carolinians for Safety, Truth, and Reason, they’re holding forums to talk about what’s happening and why, empowering parents to show up consistently and effectively so “school boards know we need them to stay the course and not be bullied by whoever can say the most outlandish things at board meetings.”

One such online forum, “Help! I’m Speaking at School Board!,” invited a member of a rural county’s Board of Education to talk about what her job is like nowadays. Describing the aggression and misinformation at public meetings, she also revealed that the vast majority of written comments board members receive support mask mandates and more inclusive library books and lessons. But you’d never know it because media coverage amplifies the often belligerent people who currently dominate the space—that’s why it’s so important to show up. Those on the Zoom call immediately felt less alone and inspired to speak up in person. Down Home and NCSTARS gives them the tools: how to find out when your school board meets, what makes an effective public comment, practice in doing so, and lots of encouraging handouts and follow-up.

As Down Home’s Frisbie-Fulton notes, “It all fits together, and we are here to help folks understand that and organize against it.” 

Such efforts don’t just counter the craziness we’re seeing. They also offer a window into how grassroots organizations successfully engage community members about what’s affecting their daily lives, and what they can do about it. It’s what Down Home North Carolina and similar groups do day in and day out to build solidarity, courage, and effectiveness. It’s the heart and soul of making America a better place for all.

*

I know about Down Home North Carolina through my involvement with Airlift, which raises money to support grassroots organizations in key areas throughout the country to engage and empower people normally left out of the political process, turning non-voters into voters. Check it out!

In addition to the many links included in the post, check out these for a deeper dive:

https://medium.com/reclaiming-rural/they-know-something-about-their-education-is-being-politicized-6bb95d83da24

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/09/20/the-man-behind-critical-race-theory

https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-inquiry/how-a-conservative-activist-invented-the-conflict-over-critical-race-theory

https://www.nbcnews.com/southlake-podcast

https://www.texasmonthly.com/arts-entertainment/southlake-podcast-race-debate/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/01/21/fox-news-lie-school-board-domestic-terrorists/

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2022/01/critical-race-theory-voting-rights-gop/621383/

“And so we lift our gaze, not to what stands between us, but what stands before us.”

– Amanda Gorman, 2021 Inaugural Poem, The Hill We Climb

Think back to a year ago. No, not the insurrection, but the day before. On January 5th, both Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff won their Georgia run-offs, turning the U.S. Senate the palest – but still lovely! – shade of blue. Honestly, to most of us, the likelihood of not just one but both of these men prevailing seemed preposterous. But we opened our checkbooks, rolled up our sleeves, and got to work anyway. Their victories felt miraculous.

But of course it wasn’t a miracle at all. It was the determination, hard work, and generosity of everyone – doubtful and hopeful alike – who stepped up. Led by primarily Black grassroots organizers whose persistent movement building had just put the state in Biden’s column, legions of activists and volunteers knocked on doors, registered new voters, phone banked, wrote letters and postcards, texted, and donated hundreds of millions of dollars.

As a result, Democratic turnout, especially in counties with a large share of Black voters, smashed records. As Nse Ufot, head of the New Georgia Project said at the time, “The margins are so small that every action, including your vote, matters and will make a difference. Black voters got that message. Black voters recognized that we need to complete the task.”

Now we turn to the task of securing a better and more progressive future in 2022, “striving,” as Amanda Gorman reminds us, “to form our union with purpose.“

The hill we must climb in 2022 is indeed steep. Yet we’ve done it before and we’ll do it again. In the spirit of January 5, 2021, and of the poet, we greet the New Year with purpose and resolve.

*

I wrote this for the January issue of “The Drop,” a newsletter I produce for Airlift, an all-volunteer group near and dear to my heart. Airlift raises money for progressive grassroots organizations in key areas throughout the country. The groups we fund excel at turning non-voters into voters, especially in communities of color, women, and young people–exactly the groups who made all the difference in the 2020 election, and will do so again in 2022.

These are dark times. Literally, since the winter solstice was yesterday, but emotionally and politically, too, as omicron surges and a nihilistic GOP gains ground while Democrats falter.

These are the times when it is good to turn to poetry: I have been re-reading Amanda Gorman’s Inaugural Poem, “The Hill We Climb.” It’s as inspiring today as it was in the beginning of the year, precisely because it acknowledges the exhaustion and brutal realities from which hope, perseverance, and progress nonetheless emerge.

These are the times when it is good to turn to historians for the solace of the long view. In her missive of December 19, Heather Cox Richardson quotes The American Crisis, Thomas Paine’s pamphlet from the same date in 1776, “at a time when the fortunes of the American patriots seemed at an all-time low”:

These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.

Richardson goes on to recount how the new American enterprise seemed doomed after the initial excitement of that summer’s Declaration of Independence gave way to the bleakness of exhaustion, demoralization, and retreat. She continues, quoting Paine:

Let it be told to the future world, that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive, that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet and to repulse it.

Patriots rallied, and nearly five years later, a new nation emerged—“A republic, if you can keep it,” in the prescient words of Benjamin Franklin.

Can we? It sometimes feels doubtful in these dark days.

Yet these are also the times when from now until the summer solstice, the light will grow each and every day. And beyond, too, if we heed Amanda Gorman’s call:

For there is always light, if only we’re brave enough to see it.

If only we’re brave enough to be it.