Valentine’s Day 2021

("I want him to live a long life alone with his cowardice.")
(“I want him to live a long life alone with his cowardice.”)

People I wouldn’t want to be this morning: members of the Republican Party. On a shakily founded, shoddily argued technicality, 43 of their Senators voted to acquit the former President of the gravest of clearly outlined, methodically presented charges. The Republican Party is now permanently tied to the former President’s malfeasance and dereliction of duty. Craven.

These and the events of the last five years have, however, illustrated for me just how hard it is for particular people of privilege, position, and influence to resist the pull of raw power.

I grew up believing and have tried to move through the world as though the means and the ends are inextricable from one another. Naively, I’d expected that sort of drive toward integrity from my “betters”. But, now I understand why, in certain communities, profiles in courage are indeed rare and can’t be drawn from the words and deeds of the majority of their people or representatives.