President Joe Biden frequently calls for “healing the soul of our country.” Lincoln wrote of “binding up the nation’s wounds.” Has the current exposure of our nation’s brokenness revealed an opportunity to give these words new meaning? Can we stop the bloodshed, diagnose symptoms, treat root causes?
The truly violent nature of the Jan. 6 attack on our nation’s Capitol — as well as just how close we came to seeing our elected officials murdered by an angry mob — is just beginning to come to light.
Sedition. Whatever you want to call the violent assault in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021 — a mob action, a siege, a coup attempt, a riot, domestic terrorism, an insurrection — the fault clearly lies with the president of the United States. Donald Trump called for it, and when it happened — “an act of violent sedition aided and abetted by a lawless, immoral and terrifying president” (New York Times columnist Bret Stephens, Jan. 6) — he praised it. Joe Biden was correct to use the same language, saying the assault “borders on sedition.”
A 2019 Center for American Progress report on the state of gerrymandering — the manipulation of electoral constituency boundaries in favor of one political party — across the United States found that unfair, partisan redistricting practices had resulted in the election of 59 Congressional representatives who would not have won their seats based on their area’s popular vote.
Donald Trump’s telephone conversation with Georgia’s secretary of state will go down in history as a classic case of election interference, totally in keeping with Trump’s disdain for democratic processes and perfect willingness to use any means, legal or otherwise, to get his way.
We are in the middle of a global pandemic, with over 231,000 COVID-19 cases in Washington state alone. Even with the days getting shorter and darker as we enter the cold winter months, there is light at the end of the tunnel, as Pfizer’s and Moderna’s vaccines are distributed.
Happy New Year’s Eve! Are you ready for 2021?
There are more than a few Grinches trying to steal Christmas this year, and we fear the ending will not be quite as happy as the one Dr. Seuss wrote for his 1957 children’s book, “How the Grinch Stole Christmas!”
Everything that comes out of the White House today — the lies, the false claims of election fraud, the absurd lawsuits — makes me retreat and recoil. But I feel a particular sense of dread whenever I am watching the TV news and press secretary Kayleigh McEnany steps up to the podium in the White House briefing room.
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: Washington and Oregon residents are lucky to live in the Pacific Northwest, where state leaders have consistently taken the COVID-19 pandemic seriously, listened to public health experts, enacted early mask mandates and stay-at-home orders to help quell the virus and limited indoor activities shown to be at high risk of spreading the airborne coronavirus.
