Fairness & Hope

Thursday, December 17, 2020 (Fourteen days remaining in 2020)

I continue wanting to be done with 2020. The election is past, except for the Georgia runoffs. Some Republicans are slipping from the despot’s grasp and the nation seems slightly calmer.

I’m reading Isabel Wilkerson’s book, CASTE. She explains in a clear readable way how historical attitudes toward the differences among people have defined status, been unjust. She speaks to India’s caste system with the rich and the untouchables. She correlates the early philosophy of Nazi Germany to America’s divisions of people, categorized by power versus helplessness, money versus need, good versus bad, worthiness versus unworthiness.

She suggests that these histories reveal how Trump’s blustery and domineering nature has won passionate support from millions of followers, and also support from a majority of Republicans in high places. This nation has verged on being overtaken by power players focused on accumulating wealth and ignore needs of citizens less affluent. Trump’s government has supported a caste system, by denying entry to immigrant parents and removing their children, denying citizenship rights to many already long living and working in this country, and raising ever-higher the evangelistic flag of sheer Christianity.

Even after a national election ousted Trump, those in power and their followers tried to deny the outcome. They attempted to reverse election results to keep Trump in power, to maintain power themselves. If they’d again become America’s ruling majority, heaven help we who once were middle class, and worst for individuals with different skin colors, and those disabled.

This era of nearly-uncontrollable pandemic has been awful, but thankfully did rid us rid of Trump. He and his minions didn’t handle the dangers and ignored them, instead focusing on international strengths and the higher-echelon’s wealth.

This has been the world’s year of learning, and of threats. People have learned that long-lived organisms may disappear and recur; that the larger environment has supremely critical needs, that over-populated areas led by despots are hotbeds of angst, and that imminent threats exist to our long-held confidence in democratic processes.

Dear Friends: May 2021, with thoughtful, fair leaders revive farsightedness and hope. Diana