How To Stop Political Rot

We’re rubberneckers
witnessing the wreckage of Democracy,
corroding on the shoulder,
crushed against the guardrail,
abandoned by the GOP.

We’re in trouble, America.

We have devolved into a dangerous place where one party with a diminishing electorate is forcing their partisan beliefs on a majority who don’t support their radical agenda.

An agenda that

• Outlaws abortions
• Passes billionaire tax cuts
• Enables trade wars
• Denies Climate Change
• Puts gun manufacturers before families
• Destroys protections for pre-existing conditions
• Purges Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid

While the GOP hijacks our government, they’re making our country less safe. In their silence, they condone the behavior of a deranged, incompetent president who promotes bigotry in hate speech to his base—Dangerous rhetoric that incites mass shootings and threatens national security.

Because of GOP policies…

Our rights are being diminished.

Our communities are under attack.

Everyday we awaken to horrific news: mass shootings, hate crimes, children dying on the border, Climate Change disasters, the undermining of laws and regulations that hurt Americans and help corporations.

As we weather the trauma of daily chaos and horror, Mitch McConnell and the GOP stack the courts with ultra conservative judges, weaken our system of checks and balances, pass restrictive abortion laws and ease gun regulations so manufacturers profit from mass shootings.

Be afraid. Be sad. Be angry, but don’t be silent.

If we allow sadness to spiral into despondency and lose hope, allow the GOP and Trump to bully us into silence, we will embolden them and their agenda to remake America into a plutocratic patriarchy.

If we stay silent, the GOP will continue dismantling our institutions, while allowing a president with authoritarian tendencies to meddle in Justice Department investigations and Congressional oversight.

A silent America is a complicit America. It’s an affirmation of extremist policies that hurt our families, our finances and liberties.

If we maintain the status quo, enable the decline of democratic values and institutions, we dishonor the sacrifices the founders endured to reject the tyranny of a king. We dishonor our veterans and the men and women who died upholding freedom and acquiesce to the disrupters of democracy.

We must reject radical ideology that threatens our freedom; reject the perversion of our democracy by a president and his enablers who put party before country. Who undermine our system of checks and balances to hold onto power and financial dominance.

We can’t allow the GOP to enact policies that limit opportunities for the majority while expanding the wealth and influence of the minority. Can’t allow them to subsidize billionaires with tax cuts that benefit their donors and themselves while cutting social security and Medicare to pay for it.

If we continue voting Republicans into office, they will continue hurting our families and country.

Only we can stop the political rot by speaking out against the abuse of power.

Be strong. Be loud.

Speak out now while we still have free speech rights.

It’s time to restore people-powered democracy, as the founders intended, and reject this bastardized version of it that favors corporate donors and special interest groups. It’s time to show the wealthy few that control policy that they cannot silence us or diminish us.

We are all America. And as Americans, we have an obligation to speak out for our families, our communities and ourselves to prevent the perversion of our democracy by self-serving Congressmen. Those who shirk their constitutional duties they swore to uphold by curtailing our rights and dismantling our institutions.

We can stop the political rot by exercising our constitutional rights to speak out in peaceful assembly and cast a ballot on Election Day to vote them out.

Speak out loud and speak out often. Don’t let democracy corrode on the shoulder.