The More Things Change…

By Karen Tricomi, As Published in The Union

Two steps forward, two steps back, the far right's long game might just pay off - unless we pull together.

In the year I was born - and for too many years thereafter - abortion, homosexuality, and interracial marriage were against the law. The culture tacitly accepted sexual harassment, redlining, and lynching. For a few - mostly rich, mostly white, mostly men - those were the good old days. For the rest of us,  they were dark times. 

Things changed during my lifetime, and for a while it seemed that the arc of history was headed in the right direction. But the far right has been playing a long game, and seem poised to push us back into a world where the powerful - not the majority - rule.     

We still live in a democracy, albeit currently a fragile one. Today the majority  of Americans believe that people should be allowed to marry whomever they love, are in favor of a women's right to choose, want government-supported health care, and agree that the popular and electoral votes were won by Joe Biden. (Sorry, Kevin Kiley and all you other election deniers, but let's face facts that aren't “alternative” for a change.) Our so-called “representative” government isn’t representing us, but instead is taking orders from a dishonored ex-president under 91 federal indictments.

It will take work, dedication and heart to regain what we've lost, and to gain basic human rights not yet won. But let's remember that although we appear to have taken a few steps backward, we took so many steps forward in the first place. Through hard work, organizing, and getting out the vote, we moved from lynchings to affirmative action and voters’ rights, from brutal anti-gay hate crimes to the right to same-sex marriage, from no health insurance for tens of millions of Americans to some measure of health-care equality, and from fear of  saying “no” to standing in solidarity with  #metoo. 

It took time. It took all of us. We can do it again. Get involved. Vote.