The story of America cannot be told in terms of what we are or what we have been. The American story is that we are a people in motion – we are going someplace. Someplace better than where we are or where we were. It’s not about where we are, it’s about the journey we are on.
It’s not about what we are, it’s about what we are trying to become.
As we await the trial phase of the impeachment proceedings, it’s apparent that many members of the U.S. Senate are jumping past the first question – the question of fact – and starting on the question of punishment.
Our democracy doesn’t just permit you to speak freely, but it requires it. It’s through the freedoms of speech and press that our democracy defends itself, strengthens itself, and grows itself.
It plays on your sense of guilt that you missed an email, that you rudely ignored an email, that the sender is really interested in helping you – when, in fact, this email is just a pretense.
Saturday night would have been the time to shift to a wholly-positive campaign. To inspire voters. To call them to “Yes, we can”, “We Dare to Dream”, and “We have before, we will again”.
We stumbled in recent days, choosing someone who claimed greatness but delivers fear, weakness, greed, corruption, confusion. Who delivers insult, derision, and mockery to America’s friends, and platitudes, flattery, and encouragement to those who seek to harm America.
In two short years, America has surrendered its standing.
But there’s no need to stop canvassing. Perhaps it’ll be less formal than a campaign might canvass – no mobile app, no careful selection of which doors to knock and which to skip, no glossy door-hangers to leave behind. But canvassing is a formalized version of that most basic political act – talking.
Let’s find a way to pay for it, whatever it costs. Because, if it’s a good thing to do, if it solves an intolerable problem, then we should do it. Not because we can afford it, but because we need it.
Because we can’t afford to not do it.
I am confident that any bill of impeachment passed by the House will not only fail in the Senate – it will never go to trial in the Senate. Senate boss McConnell has shown that he is perfectly willing to simply ignore House-passed bills, so they never get a hearing, never get a vote, never…
We trust in the institution of government, a government that is, in the end, made up of all of us, all of the people, a government that creates the law by which we agree to be governed.
