1) Contact our supportive state governors and legislators and insist that they form a strong nationwide alliance to counter Trump.
2) Push hard on any activist groups we support to get out of their silos and band together nationally as part of the juggernaut.
3) Contact our federal legislators and ask why there is either no prohibition against an insurrectionist being allowed to take office or, if there is, why they are not invoking it.
A certain Father had a family of Sons, who were forever quarreling among themselves. No words he could say did the least good, so he cast about in his mind for some very striking example that should make them see that discord would lead them to misfortune.
One day when the quarreling had been much more violent than usual and each of the Sons was moping in a surly manner, he asked one of them to bring him a bundle of sticks. Then handing the bundle to each of his Sons in turn he told them to try to break it. But although each one tried his best, none was able to do so.
The Father then untied the bundle and gave the sticks to his Sons to break one by one. This they did very easily.
"My Sons," said the Father, "do you not see how certain it is that if you agree with each other and help each other, it will be impossible for your enemies to injure you? But if you are divided among yourselves, you will be no stronger than a single stick in that bundle."
Yeah, I know, fasces and all that, but you can't reject a good lesson from Aesop just because some bad guys co-opted it, any more than you can blame Indian religions for appropriation of the swastika by Nazis.
Jeanine, While the fable mirrors the pressing need to try and unify an unprecedented polarized nation, it also brings to mind how effectively Trump stokes the very fissures that exacerbate grievance and hate.
Stoking grievance and hate is Trump's game, of course. Before we can reunite a polarized nation, we must do everything we legitimately can to stop the damage Trump is planning to do.
Side note: Barbara Jo, is Robert Reich's comment section rendering correctly for you from his Substack posting? I only get the HTML markup. I'm wondering if Substack has a problem, but their "chatbot" doesn't work correctly for me either, so I can't inform them.
Jeanine, I’m mighty glad we agree there still is a guardrail—the states. As for the side note, I had presumed the Substack comment section was operating appropriately until I received a reply from a reader who informed me that a segment of my last sentence had been cut off. I suppose we could email Reich and inform him of the problem.
For starters:
1) Contact our supportive state governors and legislators and insist that they form a strong nationwide alliance to counter Trump.
2) Push hard on any activist groups we support to get out of their silos and band together nationally as part of the juggernaut.
3) Contact our federal legislators and ask why there is either no prohibition against an insurrectionist being allowed to take office or, if there is, why they are not invoking it.
A lesson from Aesop:
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The Bundle of Sticks
A certain Father had a family of Sons, who were forever quarreling among themselves. No words he could say did the least good, so he cast about in his mind for some very striking example that should make them see that discord would lead them to misfortune.
One day when the quarreling had been much more violent than usual and each of the Sons was moping in a surly manner, he asked one of them to bring him a bundle of sticks. Then handing the bundle to each of his Sons in turn he told them to try to break it. But although each one tried his best, none was able to do so.
The Father then untied the bundle and gave the sticks to his Sons to break one by one. This they did very easily.
"My Sons," said the Father, "do you not see how certain it is that if you agree with each other and help each other, it will be impossible for your enemies to injure you? But if you are divided among yourselves, you will be no stronger than a single stick in that bundle."
In unity is strength.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Yeah, I know, fasces and all that, but you can't reject a good lesson from Aesop just because some bad guys co-opted it, any more than you can blame Indian religions for appropriation of the swastika by Nazis.
Jeanine, While the fable mirrors the pressing need to try and unify an unprecedented polarized nation, it also brings to mind how effectively Trump stokes the very fissures that exacerbate grievance and hate.
Stoking grievance and hate is Trump's game, of course. Before we can reunite a polarized nation, we must do everything we legitimately can to stop the damage Trump is planning to do.
Side note: Barbara Jo, is Robert Reich's comment section rendering correctly for you from his Substack posting? I only get the HTML markup. I'm wondering if Substack has a problem, but their "chatbot" doesn't work correctly for me either, so I can't inform them.
Jeanine, I’m mighty glad we agree there still is a guardrail—the states. As for the side note, I had presumed the Substack comment section was operating appropriately until I received a reply from a reader who informed me that a segment of my last sentence had been cut off. I suppose we could email Reich and inform him of the problem.