[still processing.] One.
- The ideals we cherish cannot be taken for granted. They must be fought for.
Dignity, equality, respect, love, compassion, fairness, tolerance, trust, transparency, conscientiousness, justice — we hold these values to be self-evident. They are the bedrock of progress, of our common humanity, and of our democracy, and so we imagine the arc of history bends irreversibly toward their fulfillment. And yet, at a moment when a woman might’ve been elected president on the most progressive platform in our nation’s speckled history, our peers chose instead to elevate hate, fear, and ignorance to the bully pulpit.
Donald Trump has advocated for religious tests for citizenship, railed against nearly every minority group imaginable, emboldened our nation’s most virulent racists, and built his campaign on a strategy that placed scapegoating, manipulation and voter suppression at the fore. His cabinet, no doubt to be packed with craven slime seeking their spoils, will be running the Justice Department, the Immigration Service, our surveillance state, the Treasury Department, and the military. They are already talking about a House Un-American Activities committee. They are already demeaning our right to peaceful protest and assembly. They are already conjuring the ghosts we thought were long exorcised.
Our nation chose this. History chose this.
It will be the task of our generation to choose and enact something else.
