I wish I had the words our nation needs during this time of political crisis to keep us from losing hope, words that could assure all of us we were going to be alright, that negative news and tabloid headlines in once respectable newspapers will not have the last word, that we as a people will.
Our national trial, of course, is inextricably bound to the four trials of Donald Trump that represent his numerous attempts to tear us apart as a people.
As a wordsmith of sorts, I should know what to say, but I don’t. The words escape me.
I seem only to be able to confess of being sick of Donald Trump, sick of everything he stands for, sick of everyone who stands with what he stands for, sick of his sucking up all the oxygen in every room he enters, indeed, all the oxygen in the nation.
His very existence makes breathing difficult for most of us. He serves no useful purpose in life because he is consumed with his own at the expense of everyone else’s. If he were to disappear in an instant, his memory would fade quickly and, if recalled at all, would be as a reminder of a selfish and self-centered president who betrayed his oath of office and the people he was supposed to serve.
Donald Trump has repeatedly said he is the only person who can solve the nation’s problems when in truth he has been and remains the biggest problem we have. He’s not the only problem America faces, but he is the one that most distracts us from dealing with all the rest.
That he is the problem has made a few good leaders more determined than ever to be the instruments of his ultimate undoing. I’m thinking of Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, retired Judge Michael Luddig, Barbara Comstock, Norm Ornstein, Mitt Romney, and others, genuine conservatives who see what must be said and done because of Trump.
These are leaders whose political philosophy and policy positions I could not disagree with more, but who embody the best about what it means to be an American at a time like this. Yes, there are many progressives showing the same courage and wisdom, but the impact of these conservatives is greater precisely because they are conservatives who see clearly the threat their own political party poses to the nation.
They have the words for the hour, and represent the word made flesh in our own time as they act on principles that have enabled our republic to endure for over 240 years.
These true American patriots are living reminders that Trump and his cult following never have and never will represent what is good and right about our country. They remind us that words matter only if they lead to right actions whatever the risk involved or the price that has to be paid.
As I think about them, I realize that I don’t need to have the right words to share with you, only the courage to do what is right in my own life as they are doing in theirs.
If together the majority of Americans do that, collectively our actions will have the last word, and that is what will preserve the future of our democracy and our way of life.
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