We owe them better of ourselves
We are in the grips of a pandemic. We are in the grips of a pandemic over Memorial Day weekend during a time in which our nation's first responders and medical professionals are now preparing for a second wave.
Now is not the time to ask politicians and leaders "what are you going to do for me?" It is tone deaf.
Also tone deaf, responding to such questions in a way that disavows the complexity of the challenge we ALL face together as a society and a global community. Serious times require serious answers. This not a time for being cute and witty.
We know that this challenge is exposing systemic inequality. We know that there are some groups that are reeling while others are pressing forward in flexible ways and in relative comfort.
I have zero pity for those who've been kept away from the golf course for two months while their countrymen and countrywomen are cracking under the stresses of a threat that was initially cast off as a hoax - a posture that has now evolved into dangerous political polarization around an apolitical threat.
This weekend, Memorial Day weekend, where we are supposed to be paying reverence to service and sacrifice to a higher cause, folks are focused on what luxuries and superficial "liberties" (not wearing a facemask to mitigate the risk of asymptomatic transmission of a virus where there is no cure during a pandemic) they are "sacrificing." It is tone deaf, self-centered, and dangerous.
This is an "Ask not" moment.
Leaders and citizens, both, need to move beyond a politics of pandering and opportunistic narrow elicitations.
We need to focus on the threat that is front and center and begin tinkering with what we can do to make sure that we now think anew and build our future upon a new foundation - not rebuild on an existing foundation that leaves folks behind during everyday life or during times of danger.
In this campaign, we all need to work to understand the completeness of the problem that is in front of us. We need to be able to collectively dissect and bring forth all the underlying issues WE face together ("our brother’s keeper" and "injustices anywhere are a threat to us all").
It is Memorial Day weekend, we do honor to those who paid an ultimate sacrifice by meeting their cause in our lives and facing this challenge with grace, and by preparing to reemerge in a more equitable way.
The President is responsible for executing the fight and leading the people - not excite insurrection and threaten political opponents while jeopardizing the safety of the citizens they serve.
Congress is responsible for both looking down the road now, and pushing resources needed to the states in the fight today. They need to also begin shaping a strategy that addresses the deep challenges and then craft policies that reposition our nation post COVID-19.
Congress needs to burn the ships on the beach. We need to make sure we are pressing forward and from the beach not as individual tribes, but instead one people with an eye toward settling together and then building a better world.