Those we honor on Veterans Day risked all to protect us from exactly the kind of threat we face today from the MAGA GOP.
Let’s keep the faith and keep moving forward until we’ve put the current incarnation of the GOP with the other tyrants who have threatened us in the ash heap of history where it belongs.
Veterans Day honors those who risked all to keep America safe and to defend our values in a dangerous world. The women and men who gave so much are heroes even when, sometimes, the politicians who send them to war are not. They stood ready, and sometimes they fought, to preserve the idea of democracy in the world.
Now, America is weighed down by the tragedy in Israel and Gaza, and by the murderous lust of Putin in Ukraine. We are mindful of the challenges posed by Iran, China, and North Korea. Diplomacy in this dangerous moment includes sending messages through military deployment and the judicious use of force. It is intensely complicated, and errors in judgement can have catastrophic consequences.
The seriousness of the moment seemed not to matter to Republicans this week. A leading GOP contender on their Presidential under-card called the Jewish leader of Ukraine a Nazi during a debate. Others on the stage suggested we launch an attack on Iran. Meanwhile the real GOP leader, Mr. Trump, he of the love letters to Kim Jong Un, promises to tear up our alliances, to cede parts of Ukraine to Russia, and, terrifyingly, to use the American military against domestic political opponents.
None of the veterans I know, and none of the young people enlisting today, deserve any of these reckless people as Commander in Chief. None of the rest of us does either.
Biden’s Strong Leadership
President Biden, meanwhile, has strengthened and expanded our alliances. He has made brilliant use of both traditional and military diplomacy to keep the world’s most dangerous conflicts from escalating into global disasters. He is pushing Hamas into oblivion and Israel to preserve Palestinian lives. That may seem contradictory to many Americans, accustomed as we are to simplification. In fact, it is the kind of hard-nosed diplomacy that makes the world safer and more just. He has projected force into the region to deter Iran and its proxies from further expanding the war, as called for by Hamas. At the same time, American efforts to shore up Ukraine have stalled the largest ground invasion in Europe since World War II and every day weaken Putin’s dictatorship in Russia.
The Democrats winning week
This week, Democrats won elections all over the country. The pundits are quick to credit the abortion issue for the outcome. I am certain they are right. I am equally certain they are underestimating the ability of Americans to think about more than one thing at a time. Americans are not the fools and cynics that the Sean Hannity’s of the world think we are. We see the connection between the dangerous and thuggish right-wing certainties in foreign policy, and the dangerous and thuggish certainties they hope to impose here at home - whether that’s stripping women of control over reproduction, banning books, or imposing their fundamentalist view of Christian thought.
This week, in local school board races everywhere, the book banners put forth by the right wing’s Moms for Liberty were soundly defeated. Voters across America said to Republicans, look, growing up is complicated and your “my way or the highway” certainties strike us bad for school boards. We understand there are books that frighten some folks. But we are smart enough to know that book banning is a simple minded, thuggish, and ineffective antidote to the anxieties that come with social change.
This week, voters said no to banning abortions. Americans understand this is a difficult issue. We know that individuals have mixed feelings about it. We know that extreme views are not uncommon. The radicals on the right keep losing because the great majority of Americans think cruel bans misunderstand the role of government in our private lives. That freedom, if it means anything, means control over your own body.
The MAGA GOP undermines everything our Veterans fought for
Veterans served, fought, and risked everything, so that we could be free and safe. Today’s GOP undermines our freedom by using government to tell us all what to read and when to have children. They undermine our freedom by weakening the institutions that protect it, whether the courts or offices that oversee elections. They undermine our freedom by tipping the playing field so that the super-rich amass even more power over our lives. And, they threaten our safety by abandoning our allies, siding with autocrats, and arguing that any provocation should trigger a massive lethal response.
And none of that touches on the corrupting influence of dark money, which has bought their ignorance on climate change and their intransigence on assault weapons.
Our veterans fought to protect our unique form of government. Our democracy. Our constitution. Government isn’t the problem. Today’s Republicans are the problem, and let’s say it out loud: exactly the problem our veterans risked all to protect us from.
This week the rest of us stepped up. Let’s keep the faith and keep moving forward until we’ve put the current incarnation of the GOP with the other tyrants who have threatened us in the ash heap of history where it belongs.