Letter to My Country, July 4

For all the turmoil we Americans have experienced over the past month, a good deal of clarity has come through the smoke and noise:

• Americans are yearning to vote now, as never before. In the face of a fearful, murderous pandemic we are insisting (in record numbers) upon the freedom to vote absentee for safety’s sake. This choice is a deeply encouraging thing to me. Freedom from fear will find a way.

• The pandemic has revealed not only the weakness of our national government but also our inter-connectedness as citizens. The most dramatic instance of this is how we all want and need our schools to safely re-open – and not only for the children’s sake, but also to help Mom or Dad (or both) get back to work and help re-activate our walloped economy.

• We are also witnessing, as it unfolds in real time each day, what national leadership is not. This current Trump model, which is fully demonstrated now, is a distortion based on variations of manipulated fears – e.g., senators fearful, for whatever their reasons, of speaking plain truth to corrupt power. This is not the courage our nation needs now but weakness. This is how darkness takes hold, not hope, and any more darkness will not do.

But the rest of us are strong when, as citizens, we remember how resilient our large country has been, what other trials we have endured. We can be hopeful when we remember what our nation has been through in the past, the tests we have passed, our triumphs over other forms of darkness, of other demagogues.

On this bright morning of Independence Day, my feelings are of optimism and hope, coupled with a positive sense of defiance. We know we have the capacity to register and turnout and vote in large numbers and to set things right.

And this is how our nation has always worked, over 244 years, and how we have survived those other trials. We can and should do so again. I believe we will. In just four months time, when comes the day.

© Keel Hunt, 2020