MAGA Republicans could stand to learn a few lessons from a monarch
These grifters cannot, as the late Queen Elizabeth did her whole life, dedicate themselves to any cause larger than power & their own pocketbooks
I do not care for monarchy or monarchs, but the late Queen Elizabeth was a remarkable human being who deserves the encomiums now coming from every corner of the word. It is not just her longevity, the changes she witnessed, or the history she helped write, although that is astonishing. It is, rather, her character that, in the end, matters.
She stepped into her job as a young woman and served the rest of her life with courage and commitment, and sometimes a sense of humor. She saw her duty as service to her country and to the broader and more diverse commonwealth that she led.
Among the many tributes this week were artifacts from the single day she spent in Chicago in 1959. She had sailed to this city to celebrate the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway. The text of the dinner speech she gave that night, including some edits perhaps in her own hand is preserved. She said,
“Our inter-dependence is founded on mutual respect and on a common wish to protect the weak and to spread individual freedom. It builds bridges between continents and races geographically far apart. In times of peace or in times of crisis, it is one of our great sources of strength.”
Those words? The bedrock determination to protect the weak, to spread individual freedom, and to build bridges across our differences? They were spoken in the shadow of WWII when post-colonial wars raged across much of the world. Not a few of these involved her own government. And yet that was what she chose to stand for, what she promised to dedicate her life to make real.
You have to have character to look up to and to envision such a world when the one you live in is filled with racial and sectarian violence, with civil and uncivil wars.
Today in America, it is hard to lift our eyes above the daily strife. For one, our devices keep us tied to the momentary insult. For another, though a beloved Queen has died, in our country a usurper finds allies at court.
The usurper is, of course, Donald Trump, the would-be President who cannot admit he lost the election and was thrown out of office. His allies in court are many, from Senators to state legislators, from sheriffs to Supreme Court Justices.
The usurper went venue shopping to find one of these supporters and this week she delivered. Judge Aileen Cannon had no judicial experience and nothing to recommend her - except fealty to the Federalist Society -when Donald Trump appointed her to a judgeship and Mitch McConnel pushed her confirmation, which came after Trump lost the election.
Judge Cannon stepped into a case already being heard in another court by another Trump appointee, U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart, the judge who granted the Mar-a-Lago search warrant and was rewarded by MAGA thugs with threats to his family.
Trump and his allies cannot lift their heads from the muck to see the beautiful world we might create together. These grifters cannot, as Elizabeth did her whole life, dedicate themselves to any cause larger than their own pocketbooks. They cannot be champions of freedom, or protectors of the weak, or bridge builders between peoples. They bounce from outrage to outrage, and they hope to take us with them. To drag us backwards.
Let us instead honor Elizabeth by lifting our eyes towards more lasting things.
And here’s a secret:when you put away the outrage, when you turn off the news feed, when you contemplate this beautiful world we have been given, you cannot help but see that we are all in it together, and that forward is the only direction to go.
Rest in peace Elizabeth. May your memory remind us all of our better angels, so that we can turn away the peddlers of rage and hate, and carry out your mission: to increase freedom, to protect the weak, to build bridges.