Institutional Legitimacy

We are facing the most severe legitimacy crisis since likely the civil war. This is across the board. We don’t trust the House, the Senate, or the Courts. In short, our collective trust in government is low. Partly this is because they represent the interests of increasingly loud but small, influential political minorities. Not only that. They are in the process of rolling back rights for large swaths of the population.

Who are under attack by these people?

* Women.
* Youth
* Minorities.
* LGBTQ people

why are these groups under attack? They are seen as a problem for people who are used to power and see this slipping through their fingers like the sands of time.

This is about breaking down a caste system where people should know their place. Or rather, the reimposition of this system. There was a time when minorities, primarily black and brown, did not vote. They had that right, but it was taken away at the end of reconstruction. That was the point: To ensure these former slaves did not have a role in the political system.

It is about women. In this view of the world, the only good place for women is at home having children. If they die in pregnancy, even if the death is preventable, it’s God’s will. Women do not belong in the workplace. For god sake, not in the voting booth, either. They know women, like brown and black people, will not willingly follow the regressive standards they want to impose on us.

Young people are dangerous for another reason. In some cases, these are also women or black and brown. This is the best-educated generation in the history of the country. These kids, I use the term lovingly, understand their rights as a rule of thumb is nowhere near as religious, or the right religion, as these white men. Many of them are “woke.” They would like people to represent them who will do something about two issues critical to these youth: Mass shootings and the climate emergency. This is who we saw in Tennessee. These kids and the two expelled (one since restored) millennial legislators are picking things up where John Lewis and Martin Luther King left off.

The language of Justice and references to Hosea are out of the Civil Rights movement…