I don’t take the time these days to let in much emotion. On a day-to-day basis, I feel fine. I am fine. My immediate life is not too visibly touched by the ravages of the coronavirus and Trump’s reign of terror. I worry about others who are more directly in the line of fire, mostly with a sense of numb horror. I channel that horror into a kind of grim determination, signing up for another phone bank, donating again to the food bank or ActBlue. Mostly I maintain an even-keeled numbness, aware of how much energy I put into keeping feelings at bay so as not to get overwhelmed by the grief and rage and despair lapping at the edges.
It’s the exact opposite of how John Lewis lived, and lives on even in death. Beaten almost lifeless countless times; arrested more than 40 times; leading a sit-in on the floor of the U.S. House at age 76 demanding action on gun legislation in the wake of the Orlando massacre; embracing the tens of thousands of young activists pouring into the streets after George Floyd’s murder–John Lewis never succumbed to despair, nor did he stray from the principles of non-violence. The day of his funeral, the New York Times published a piece Lewis wrote just before he died. It’s an homage to today’s protesters and a call to action. It’s a testament to how John Lewis keeps on giving, even in death.
There have been many homages to the civil rights icon himself in the last few days. I read some, heard snippets of others. But I took the time to watch President Obama’s eulogy in full. I needed the piercing of numbness I knew his presence and his words would bring.
Watching President Obama is a heartbreaking balm for the soul in the midst of Trump’s unending and crass malevolence. I, like millions of others, miss him every day. He knows that he would never have gotten where he is without John Lewis. As he delivered the eulogy, he did not mask his grief and anger. Nor did his grief and anger overwhelm his grace and buoyancy of spirit, his ability to lift us up.
Most compelling was his direct linkage to John Lewis’s lifelong work for racial justice and what is happening now, including how often might crushes right. Until it does not. Describing the scene in 1965 Selma, President Obama said, “I imagine initially, that day, the troopers thought they’d won the battle . . . Except this time there were some cameras there. This time Americans saw—bore witness to—black Americans who were asking for nothing more than to be treated like other Americans.”
President Obama helps us see that a nonchalant cop’s knee on George Floyd’s neck is today’s reincarnation of Bull Connor, that federal troops in Lafayette Square and Portland wield the same bloodying batons; and that voter suppression tactics, including sabotaging the post office, echo poll taxes and unpassable tests about how many jelly beans are in a jar. “John Lewis devoted his time on this earth fighting the very attacks on democracy and what’s best in America that we’re seeing circulating right now,” President Obama said. “As long as we have breath in our bodies, we have to continue his cause. Everybody’s gotta come out and vote. . . We can’t treat voting like an errand to run if we have some time.”
And then: “You want to honor John? Let’s honor him by revitalizing the law that he was willing to die for.”
President Obama concluded by saying that Lewis “could not have been prouder of this new generation. John, these are your children, they learned by your example.
Thank you, John Lewis and President Obama. And thank you to all those now rising up and persevering in the fight for justice, whether grief-stricken, enraged, grim, weary, exuberant, numb, and–dare I say?–hopeful.
As a pre-teen, my favorite book was Gone with the Wind. I would devour it cover to cover far into the night, a flashlight illuminating the pages. As soon as I finished the book, I’d start over, hoping to beat my previous time. I saw the film many times, too, the screen’s imagery and Margaret Mitchell’s words melting together into memory. Still, it’s the thrill of my late-night, under-the-covers immersion at Tara with Scarlett O’Hara that stays with me.
I think it was Scarlett’s 17-inch-waist that first reeled me in. And, of course, the tempestuous romance between her and Rhett Butler. These sad, misguided fixations alone make me cringe. The backdrop of the Civil War and slavery barely registered. Referring to it now as a backdrop makes me cringe anew, proof positive of how easy it is for me still to retreat from reality.
From an early age, I knew the broad outlines of the Civil War—Confederacy bad, Union good. Slavery was a horror, and Abraham Lincoln was right up there with FDR and JFK in the presidential pantheon. After all, my parents were active in the Civil Rights movement. Perhaps that’s why I read furtively by flashlight. But I didn’t sneak out of the house to see the movie version of Gone with the Wind. I’m sure we watched it together, and I don’t remember any in-depth discussions. My parents pointed out that Mammy, Prissy, and Sam were stereotypes undergirding the fantasy of loyal black people happily serving benevolent masters. But mostly we focused on those incredible hoop skirts and what Scarlett saw in that drip Ashley.
My first misgivings about GWTW came not from a deeper understanding of structural racism but from feminist critiques. That scene where a half-drunk Rhett shows Scarlett how he could crush her skull between his hands, then carries her upstairs to the bedroom, where she wakes up all smiles the next morning? Not long after my dawning horror that the scene depicted rape, I had another rude awakening: Rhett was a charter member of the KKK.
So I relegated Gone with the Wind to all the other things I’d once enjoyed and could no longer stomach: Coming-of-age stories that romanticized child sexual abuse; Last Tango in Paris; Bill Cosby. I moved on without giving GWTW much thought beyond feeling ashamed by my clueless self.
I’ve evolved some from my oblivion over the decades, though I have barely scratched the surface. I still read in bed after midnight. Now the illumination is provided by my iPhone rather than a flashlight—and also by the words of Nikole Hannah-Jones, in her brilliant New York Times Magazine essay, “What is Owed?”:
“If true justice and equality are ever to be achieved in the United States, the country must finally take seriously what it owes black Americans.”
Note: I had intended to write a light-hearted little post to close out the month here on Shrinkrapped, but with all the horrors in our country right now–particularly those visited upon people of color–I just couldn’t. Nor could I find new words to channel my heartache and rage. Instead, here is my latest piece for Airlift, an organization that supports grassroots organizations to engage and expand the electorate in key areas around the country. This post features Michigan Liberation.
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Turning non-voters into voters: Airlift’s mission aligns perfectly with Michigan Liberation, one of several grassroots groups our “Lift the Midwest” fund supports. Founded in 2018, Michigan Liberation is a statewide network of people and organizations organizing to end the criminalization of Black families and communities of color in Michigan.
One of the group’s first endeavors was a series of listening sessions that revealed just how widespread the impacts of archaic and discriminatory laws and policies have been among poorer communities, especially among people of color. As one participant noted, “Too often, people are caught up in the system because of financial instability. Between cash bail, court fines, legal fees, and other costs, it seems impossible to escape from under the load of expenses that start to rack up, further oppressing marginalized people. How is that about justice? A wealthy person could pay up and be done, but that’s not true for most of us.”
Those who have been incarcerated and their loved ones—which includes over half of Michigan Liberation’s staff and volunteers–know all too well the long-term devastation caused by criminal-legal involvement. Their leadership is key in healing communities from the pain and trauma of incarceration, and in transforming a broken system.
One such leader is Kimberly Woodson, Canvass Team Leader extraordinaire who was sentenced for life as a pregnant 17 year-old. After the Supreme Court ruled that juveniles serving a life sentence could apply for case review, Woodson was released in 2017, having spent 29 years behind bars. She started the non-profit Redeeming Kimberly to assist other returning citizens with housing, food, clothing, and jobs. Woodson facilitates forgiveness sessions, and inspires everyone at Michigan Liberation with her incredible energy and warm-heartedness.
Deep engagement and multiple conversations with low-propensity voters about issues that affect their daily lives were key to the electoral successes up and down the ballot in the 2018 mid-terms. In just five weeks, Michigan Liberation knocked on nearly 28,000 doors and talked personally with more than 5,000 people in three counties. Those for whom every day is a struggle may not pay much attention to national politics, but they care deeply about who’s elected as local sheriffs, prosecutors, and judges. Michigan Liberation’s education, endorsement, and empowerment efforts create powerful community advocates, and get people to the polls.
Michigan is one of the few states that automatically restore voting rights once people who have been convicted are released from jail or prison. But as Co-Director Meredith Loomis Quinlan explains, returning citizens often don’t know they can vote. Many probation and parole officers tell them it’s illegal, and people are too afraid to do anything that jeopardizes their freedom. Michigan Liberation works hard to change this through education and voter assistance. They’re advocating for registration forms in every release packet in the state. Quinlan even imagines the day when packets include a letter from the Governor saying, “Welcome back to the democratic process!”
Such long-ignored voices matter in rebuilding an engaged citizenry and achieving electoral success up and down the ballot. In 2018, Michigan Liberation helped flip four state Senate seats, three State House seats, three County Commission seats, and a US Congressional seat. Statewide offices turned from red to blue in the Governor, Attorney General, and Secretary of State races.
“A Vision for a Liberated Michigan” was launched in November 2019. The agenda highlights eight themes vital to resolving the state’s mass incarceration crisis, including the school-to-prison pipeline; police and surveillance; mental health; sentencing; jails and prisons; and re-entry services after release. An example of the latter is Michigan Liberation’s Technology Empowerment classes for returning citizens.
These amazing successes by an increasingly effective movement not only have been transforming families, individuals, communities, and the state; they‘ve also paved the way for even greater voter engagement and turnout for 2020.
Then came COVID-19. The virus has had a particularly devastating effect on incarcerated populations, where overcrowding, unsanitary conditions, and inadequate health care are routine. High rates of infection and even death among inmates and staff have catapulted the crisis into the news. Michigan Liberation and others are calling for immediate steps to stop the spread and save lives. On March 30, Governor Whitmer issued an executive order permitting (but not mandating) the early release of vulnerable inmates who pose no risk to public safety.
Earl Burton, a formerly incarcerated Michigan Liberation organizer, said Whitmer is on the right track, but more needs to be done, such as immediately releasing elderly and medically infirm prisoners and those already granted parole. “I personally know a few who are in no way shape or form a threat to public safety. You have prisoners who have been there for decades, and are no longer the same people that they were 30, 40 years ago,” Burton notes.
In addition to highlighting the urgency of Michigan Liberation’s criminal justice efforts, the coronavirus has also shifted the organization’s focus to providing desperately needed services such as water and food to suffering communities.
The political work continues under extremely trying circumstances. The staff switched to working from home before the shelter-in-place order. They all know someone who has died from COVID, and are hearing horror stories from friends and loved ones who are currently incarcerated.
Nonetheless, Michigan Liberation has nimbly pivoted to online community outreach and organizing. The prior year’s experience with Zoom and providing Tech Empowerment classes has come in handy! Michigan Liberation recently hired 14 online organizers and 4 digital communications people to amplify social media content. Canvassers engage in wellness checks, then relate people’s experiences with how their votes are vital in bringing about change.
Co-Director Quinlan notes a silver lining: As COVID has exposed the fault lines of a broken and unjust criminal-legal system, it has generated more empathy. “COVID provides a tangible measure of elected officials’ performance. What did they do or not do during this crisis?” she remarks. “We see it as an opportunity.”
Airlift also sees it as an opportunity. Michigan Liberation exemplifies how building movements from the grassroots up engages marginalized communities, which in turn translates into meaningful and progressive electoral change. Now more than ever, your contribution matters.
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Your generosity makes a difference. Please support Michigan Liberation and all the other great grassroots organizations Airlift funds by donating at https://secure.actblue.com/donate/airlift. Thank you!
I am almost always way behind in my reading: usual backlogs are six weeks for the New Yorker and six months for the Atlantic. My husband once remarked, “You have many good qualities, but knowing when to stop reading an article you’re not absorbing isn’t one of them.” (Neither is speed reading.)
Taking his words to heart, at least now when I sit down with The New York Review, I flip through the pages, reading only one or two articles between the cover and the Complex, Dynamic Tomboy and New York City Attorney seeking love (or at least lust) in the back-page Personals.
“Damn,” I think to myself as I toss the barely read periodical into the recycling bin. “This is really great and incisive writing. Too bad I don’t do more of it.”
I can’t toss The New Yorker, though. I’ve never been a just-the-cartoons page-flipper. The magazine used to be known for its timeless (and endless), multi-part series on things like corn, or rivers, or geology, so it didn’t really matter when I tackled my piles. But even the hallowed New Yorker succumbed to the reality of shorter attention spans and more topical coverage. So I’m now often in a time warp when I do sit down to read.
After the 2016 election, I savored this peculiarity. For weeks, I was still relishing the prospect of our first female commander-in-chief. President Obama was not ever going to have to turn over the keys and the nuclear codes to someone completely his opposite and unfit for office in every way imaginable. I could live in my alternative reality long before the Trump administration’s insistence on doing so wreaked such widespread havoc.
Now I’m in that surreal space again, my reading lagging way behind the current reality of our Covid-upended world. In my time warp, things exist beyond the total takeover not only of our health and our economy, but of seemingly all news, conversation, and every waking and non-waking moment.
My lagging world isn’t quite as enjoyable as before, when President Obama’s magnetic smile stretched from sea to shining sea. I’m catching up on the House impeachment vote, moving through Ian Frazier’s Season’s Greetings, the assassination of Qassem Suleimani, the Democrats in disarray. Mitt Romney hasn’t yet become an unlikely hero/traitor (take your pick) during the Senate impeachment “trial.” The Iowa caucuses are still a quaint if undemocratic trendsetting tradition, not a debacle. There’s still more than a dozen candidates vying for the Democratic nomination. Then, as I make my way through the stacks, Bernie is poised to run all the way to the end zone while his opponents tackle each other, littering the field. Super Tuesday has yet to come, along with all the rest of the brutal primaries before they get postponed. The Democrats are not yet in a state of array behind Joe Biden–Man from a By-gone Era who is, strangely, now the Man of the Moment. There’s nary a hint of the pandemic about to engulf us (although one might take this flu season Valentine as foreshadowing):
I am glad my behind-the-times reading creates corners of my psyche beyond the reach of Covid. I am even perversely grateful to be reminded of how Stephen Miller is one of the most loathsome denizens of Trump’s swamp. The corona virus is not the only devastating force in the world.
My time warp is about to converge with the present moment: I have finished the New Yorker whose cover features Trump with a surgical mask over his eyes as he rages on and on. Just two more issues until the one with the spiky virus balls festooning the cover. I will miss the past times of my so-slow reading, just as I miss our pre-Covid world that seems centuries ago.
But I look forward to a better future, when and if it ever comes.
I keep thinking about the film Titanic as we begin to absorb the public health and financial impacts of hitting this coronavirus iceberg. First there’s the feeling of nothing much happening, or maybe it’s something, but we’ll all be fine. Awareness that the ship is going down creeps in at different paces to different people, and reactions vary. Quick-wittedness, denial, altruism, selfishness, desperation, calm. The entire panoply of human nature unfolds while the orchestra plays on.
What sticks with me the most from the film are the parents
in steerage, cuddling with their children in cramped metal cots. Mothers and
fathers know they’re all doomed, but they do what they can– speaking in
soothing tones to their still-oblivious sons and daughters, telling stories, performing
the ritual of nightly prayer, holding them tight. Love creates a cocoon of
security: False, but also true.
Psychotherapists call this “felt security.” It reflects not
so much the dire dimensions of the actual situation, but the reassuring
sustenance drawn from the relationship with a loving, trustworthy, and reliable
caregiver. Those parents in steerage send the message, “I am here with you
right now, and in this moment together we are okay.”
A lot of us, even those who are not parents, have been doing
a lot of that recently as we try to maintain a sense of normalcy and well-being
in the midst of a global pandemic and economic meltdown. Posting pictures of
sunsets, flowers, the family dog, funny memes; poetry chain letters; neighbors
opening their windows to sing, clap, or howl; sewing masks for front-line
workers; donating to especially hard-hit groups; buying gift cards from our
favorite restaurants and small businesses; moving our normal activities like school,
yoga, fitness, book groups, phone banking, work from real life to Zoom—all help
knit together a sense of security.
Titanic also
depicts a society similar to ours in terms of class and economic inequality.
The rich are the most protected while the poor suffer, even though they’re all
in the same boat. The unsinkable Molly Brown, a member of the privileged class,
decries the entitlement and selfishness of her peers, urging them to make more
room on the lifeboats to save far more people. Her plea goes largely unheeded.
We are seeing the same dynamics play out now: just look at
the back-and-forth of the recent $2.2 trillion relief bill passed by Congress. Thanks
largely to Democrats, more room was created to help the most vulnerable. Far more
will be needed.
Just as not everyone perished in the Titanic, we will
somehow survive this. But whether or not we view all as deserving a place on
the life boats will determine who and how many.
I’ve seen the film Marriage
Story twice. Following the uproar over a conversation Warren and Sanders had
in 2018 about whether a woman can beat Donald Trump feels like watching it a
third time.
Two couples: The fictional Nicole and Charlie, an
amicable but divorcing duo with an eight-year-old son who want different
things, and the real-life Warren and Sanders, like-minded good friends and
political colleagues who both want to be president.
Befitting their long histories of mutual admiration
and affection and their desire to protect what matters most (a child, a
progressive movement), both couples initially observe non-aggression pacts:
mediation instead of divorce lawyers for Nicole and Charlie, close policy
alignments and no bad-mouthing for the presidential rivals. But as differences
emerge and each seeks advantage in order to prevail, initial vows give way to some
definite hot-mic moments.
So it goes in movies, in politics, and in life. The same experience is rarely received or recalled in the same way.
Given that a woman’s electability against Donald Trump
has featured prominently in so many political conversations over the past three
years, it’s entirely plausible that Sanders told Warren that a woman couldn’t
win the presidency in 2020. Or maybe he just pointed out how a lying, sexist Trump
would weaponize gender in a society riddled with outright misogyny and
unconscious bias. It’s also entirely plausible that Warren heard his words
correctly. Or that she didn’t, but understood the implicit message, “better not
try,” a warning women hear all the time.
In Marriage
Story, Nicole hears this warning, too, and for a long time heeds it. Every
time she tries to implement their initial agreement to try living on both
coasts, Charlie dismisses her wishes. After all, they are a New York family, with a flourishing theater life there.
Besides, LA, television . . . Seriously?
Nicole continually acquiesces, losing herself in the process until she has had
enough. No wonder she is susceptible to the ruthlessly empathic and effective divorce
attorney Nora, who knows exactly how to fashion Nicole’s inchoate dissatisfactions
and longings into the story of a reclaimed self.
The shift from acquiescence to “Enough!” seems abrupt,
excessive. But it comes from tolerating a lengthy accumulation of
insensitivities, intended and inadvertent injuries, and the preeminence of
others’ needs and desires until finally we reach a tipping point. Suddenly,
we’ve had it.
Getting fed up is at the heart of so much conflict and
also of so much necessary change, both personally and socio-politically. It drives
not only Nicole’s and Warren’s persistence, but also the #MeTooMovement, Black
Lives Matter, Sanders’s (and Trump’s) political appeal, and the success of so
many women candidates in the 2018 mid-terms.
“Enough!” It drives a great many of us. For better and for worse.
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A slightly different version of this piece initially appeared in NCSPP’s Impulse, a publication for therapists. The topicality of the Oscars and the political spat is past, but the themes are timeless.
Grassroots organizing is where it’s at, and I’ve gotten involved with Airlift, which raises funds to support some amazing organizations doing crucial work to turn non-voters into voters in key areas throughout the country. Check out this latest in my “On the Ground” series.
2020 is here, a hugely consequential year for our country and the world. As we welcome the New Year with hope and renewed determination for the work ahead, we also welcome a new organization into the fold that Airlift funds: Down Home North Carolina.
Down Home exemplifies the winning strategy of building political power from the ground up by engaging and expanding the electorate with those who have been most marginalized. Founded in June 2017 by organizers Todd Zimmer and Brigid Flaherty, Down Home’s focus is on building long-term, progressive infrastructure to empower working families in rural and small-town communities across North Carolina. The co-directors both have deep roots in the state, and have witnessed how well-funded, right-wing interests have exploited racial differences and the rural/urban divide, pitting white, black, immigrant, and LGBTQ working families against one another to maintain power. Since 80 out of 100 North Carolina counties are rural, the balance of power won’t shift without investing in the vast people power ready to be unlocked in these long-neglected regions. After learning how to organize for issue advocacy and electoral success, Zimmer and Flaherty returned home to North Carolina to do “the heart work” necessary for making local, state, and national government serve the people’s interests, not the rich and powerful.
One of Down Home’s major undertakings was a Deep
Listening Canvass, with trained canvassers holding more than 1,000 conversations
across the political, racial, and economic spectrum in rural areas. Through
nonjudgmental listening and sharing personal stories, those who commonly
distrust one another discovered shared values and interests, coming together to
forcefully advocate for Medicaid expansion, fair wages, education, the end of
cash bail, and solutions to the opioid crisis.
These issues matter to communities that have been
devastated by the grinding poverty brought about by a hollowed-out economy and the
defunding of education and social programs under Republican rule. Listening
makes a huge difference: “No one’s ever asked me before,” was a common refrain
among Deep Canvass participants. Such respectful engagement shifts not only
hearts and minds, but participation: People who have never before paid
attention to politics are now attending Town Halls and Leadership Trainings,
challenging their elected representatives and injustice in the courts,
educating their neighbors, working hard for electoral change, even running
for—and winning!—office. DHNC-supported candidates won six out of eight local
races—and would have won another had a tie-breaking coin toss gone the other
way! On a state-wide basis, DHNC has joined Democratic Governor Roy Cooper in
support of Medicaid expansion, and continue to fight the Republican-controlled
legislators who consistently block healthcare for half a million North
Carolinians. Member efforts have been featured in a New
York Times op-doc.
Down Home also provides on-the-ground services to
those in need. Through distributing clean syringes and Naloxone, the antidote
to an opioid overdose, more than 130 lives have been saved. Coordinator Mary Kate
Crisp says, “I lived with active addiction for three years, and when I stopped
using, I started going out into the community to volunteer. It was a big piece
of my recovery, and I was thrilled when I was hired by Down Home this summer.”
In addition to distributing life-saving interventions, Crisp and her team work
tirelessly to educate, break down stigma, direct people to services, and
organize direct advocacy actions.
Another major DHNC campaign is fighting the cash bail
system through court-watching, advocacy, and raising money to pay bail for
those whose lives will be devastated simply because they cannot pay to stay out
of jail while their cases are adjudicated. Such programs are not obviously
“political,” but working to improve peoples’ lives is a powerful antidote to
disengagement, and brings important electoral shifts that benefit those who
have been left behind.
In it for the long haul, Down Home North Carolina has
demonstrated astonishing growth and success in a very short time. Their
membership has doubled, there are chapters in five counties with plans for
another five, and they have knocked on thousands of doors and gotten more than
1,000 low-propensity voters to cast ballots. With engagement comes hope, and a
transformation within rural communities ground down by poverty and division
from survival mode to enthusiastic participation and leadership. Goals for 2020
include flipping the State House from Red to Blue; protecting Governor Roy
Cooper; defeating Senator Thom Tillis, and expanding the vote in rural
communities to put North Carolina back into the blue column of the Electoral
College.
With your help, all of this is within reach, in this
crucial year and over the long-term. As Airlift founder Danny Altman says about
Down Home North Carolina, “They
have the smarts, the organizing skills, the allies, the data, the plan. All
they need is the money.”
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Your generosity makes a difference. Please support Down Home North Carolina and all the other great grassroots organizations Airlift funds by donating at https://secure.actblue.com/donate/airlift. Thank you!
A lot of people dread turning 65, but not me. Ever since a cancer diagnosis in 2012, there’s nothing I’d rather do than tick off the years toward old age. I’ve eagerly awaited certain milestones:
60 for most senior discounts at the movies
62 for the lifetime pass to National Parks (I lucked in at the $10 rate just before it increased to $80—still a steal!)
65 for Medicare
66 and two-thirds for collecting 100% of my Social Security.
This month, I achieve Milestone #3, and I couldn’t be
happier. Not just because it means I’m still alive and well, but because of the
hundreds of dollars I’ll save every month for the same insurance and doctors I have
now.
Don’t get me wrong—as a self-employed cancer survivor, I was thrilled when the Affordable Care Act passed, and pre-existing conditions could no longer be used as an excuse to deny people coverage. I was lucky enough to have good coverage pre-ACA through my husband’s employer. But my husband felt he couldn’t leave no matter how unhappy he became as the job grew more stressful. Employer-provided health insurance, which we were fortunate to have, equaled golden handcuffs. The ACA changed all that. My husband, also a cancer survivor, was thrilled to join me in the ranks of the happily self-employed.
We paid through the nose to keep our good coverage
through Covered California, and it was a privilege to do so (in all senses of
the word).
Still, as great an accomplishment as the ACA is, it
highlights the problems in our for-profit healthcare industry. It’s why
single-payer, universal coverage, the public option, and Medicare for All are so
front and center in the 2020 campaign. Democrats have varied but serious
proposals about how best to improve healthcare, while Republicans continue to
sabotage an imperfect but substantial reform, even threatening to eliminate the
ban on pre-existing conditions altogether and putting healthcare out of reach
for tens of millions of Americans.
Medicare for All has always struck me as a way to borrow
a catchy name and a popular program as an umbrella description of our aspirations
for universal coverage. There are different ways to skin this cat. My personal
preference is to initially lower the age at which Medicare eligibility starts
(a proposal that Senator Joe Lieberman thwarted in 2009), funnel much younger
people dropped from their parents’ coverage into it, and allow an opt-in for
everybody by expanding the public option—essentially the glide path described
by many Democrats to achieve Medicare for All. I understand the appeal and
economic rationale of a rapid and far-reaching overhaul, but a more gradual
transition avoids the risk for major implementation glitches and has far more
buy-in from voters.
Which brings me back to Medicare for Me, my “OK,
Boomer” achievement that moves me higher up the ladder on which I was already born—a
ladder whose bottom rung swings far beyond the reach of so many. I am glad to have reached this milestone,
which makes my life easier and more affordable. I will be gladder still when Medicare
for Me becomes Medicare for All.
This is the fourth Women’s March I’ve attended, and, I hope, the last one with Trump occupying the oval office. Still here, still smiling, from 2017-2020:
That
sign I’m carrying is pretty heavy–at its base is a Hillary sign from the 2016
campaign, and I’ve been adding layers for various marches ever since–to save
Obamacare, reproductive rights, our democracy, and a warming planet; to protest
gun violence, Trump’s family separation policy, and his overall cruelty; to
support the wrenching but essential impeachment of this craven and lawless
president.
Soon after the 2016 election and first Women’s March, I wrote Signs of the Times, and it’s always a treat to see people’s creativity and passion on display. Here’s a sign about one of the few silver linings of the Trump era, plus those of my friends and I waiting for the bus to take us to San Francisco this year (photo courtesy of my husband, one of many men joining the throngs):
San Francisco’s own women leaders were prominently featured:
Plus my personal favorite:
And, of course,the number one guiding principle for all of us:
Here are some of my other favorites:
The
crowds were no match for the millions who turned out the day after Trump’s
inauguration three years ago, but the mood was one of exuberant determination.
Besides, the numbers that really count are the thousands of groups formed by
ordinary people-turned-activists, the phone calls and texts made, doors knocked
upon, voters registered, ballots cast. We’ve flipped seats from Red to Blue
from state houses to the U.S. House and Senate, and will march right through
2020 to flip even more, taking back the Senate, the White House, and the
promise of a better future.
So march to the polls on November 3, and mark your calendars for next January, when we celebrate the fruits of our labors:
My mother was glued to the television every minute of the Watergate hearings when PBS began broadcasting them on May 17, 1973. I was a senior in high school then, and although I’m sure I must have left the house from time to time that summer before college, I was often alongside her, riveted. My mother had spent a lot of the preceding years chain-smoking and cursing every time Richard Nixon showed up on TV, and I lived with equal parts admiration and fear that one day her turquoise glass ashtray full of butts would go hurtling across the living room and shatter the screen.
The testimony itself proved shattering enough: John Dean’s complicity turned into conscience; Alexander Butterfield inadvertently revealing the White House taping system that eventually led to the “smoking gun” tape proving Nixon’s direct involvement in the cover-up and obstructing justice. I don’t remember at what point we put a bottle of champagne in the fridge in anticipation of celebrating the president’s demise after invincibility slowly turned to inevitability. But I remember popping it the night of August 8, 1974, when Nixon announced his resignation, effective at noon the next day.
Those times seem long ago and in a galaxy far, far away. They’ve been beautifully captured by James Poniewozik, chief television critic for the New York Times. I’ve been aching for my mother all day long, and his account makes me ache even more for a time in which accountability and truth mattered.
My mother would have turned 96 just last month, but she’s been dead since 1995. I often look up into the stars at night and think, “Thank God you’ve missed this, it would kill you.” I was grateful that my mother died with her adoration of Bill Clinton intact, unsullied by his impeachment scandal. I could imagine ashtrays hurtling once again through the air when the Supreme Court declared Bush the winner in 2000. Although I’m sorry she missed the Obama years (she would have been equally thrilled by Hillary), I was thankful she missed 9/11, Iraq, endless wars. Trump’s election would surely have finished her off. (I feel that way myself much of the time, and do not have my mother’s habit of smoking to relieve the anxiety.)
But I do wish I could have her on the couch right now, riveted, alive with fury. I love to imagine her devouring then adding to her shelves all the books about Trump (and his fall) to her extensive Watergate library.
Right now, the prospect of popping champagne seems dim. But if and when it comes, I’ll raise a glass to you, Mom.
