I Want My GOP

This post originally appeared in early 2016. Cassandra award?

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A divided national party . . . voices of extreme rhetoric . . . an ugly, contentious primary season. Does this spell doom for two-party system?

Sounds modern, doesn’t it? But the year was 1860, and the party in question was founded by Thomas Jefferson, and shaped in the image of Andrew Jackson: The antebellum Democratic Party.

On the eve of Civil War, the future of the Union appeared in fatal doubt. Political leaders in the Deep South: South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida had all but washed their hands of the centrally powerful United States. Adding to the precarious atmosphere, a faction of Democrats in the North promoted a policy to permit slavery into the western territories under the principle of Popular Sovereignty, or direct vote. Others voices in the northern branch of the Democratic Party believed the Southern States should depart the Union in peace. And these pro-secession advocates became the most worrisome threat for Senate leader, Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, the leading Democratic candidate for the presidency in 1860.

Douglas found himself in a hell of a spot. He fervently burned to lead his party to the White House and save his nation, dangerously poised on the verge of civil war. As the principal heir to Senate leadership, Douglas had spent over twenty years in Congress working to stave off Southern secession, taking over when Kentucky Senator, Henry Clay, the “Great Compromiser” died. Clay had also spent most of his earlier career drawing up one concession after another in a noble attempt to preserve the Union. Eventually the effort wore him out, and Senator Douglas pick up the cause.

As far as Douglas was concerned, slavery wasn’t a moral issue, merely a bump in the road. The issue could easily be decided by the good folks migrating west. Douglas believed if settlers didn’t want slavery, they would decline to establish laws necessary for supporting the “peculiar institution.” But the Senator was wrong—dead wrong. Slavery had, by 1860 become an issue impossible to fix. And it was this miscalculation, underestimating the power of the slave issue, that the Illinois Senator imploded both his party, and his career.

The new Republican Party had organized six years earlier in Wisconsin, founded on one central principle—slavery would not extend into the western territories, period. And this new party spread quickly. Composed of splinter groups, this now fully unified alliance insisted that free labor was an integral component to a flourishing free market economy. The presence of slavery in sprouting regions of the West would devalue free labor, and undermine future commercial growth.

Now, don’t get me wrong, these Republicans did not sing Kumbaya or braid their hair. These men did not believe in equality between the races—they were not abolitionists. Economic principles drove their political platform, (Emancipation came later with the transformation of President Lincoln through the caldron of war).

For Stephen Douglas the approaching 1860 election meant vindication for his support of popular sovereignty, and reward for his faithful political service. And Douglas was no political hack. He fully understood the solvency of the Union lay in the delicate art of sectional balance, and his ascendancy to the White House as a Democrat would go a long way to placate the Southern hotheads. But this Illinois Senator failed, once again, to fully comprehend the temper of the nation, or of his own party. The era of seeking middle ground had passed—America’s course had been set toward industrial modernity with no place for an antiquated, barbaric labor system.

Charleston, South Carolina, was selected as the site of the 1860 Democratic convention. Chaos immediately broke loose on the convention floor. While Southern Democrats demanded strict, precise language guaranteeing the extension of slavery into the territories, Northern Democrats and those from California and Oregon pushed for Douglas’ popular sovereignty. This tense deadlock forced the latter faction to walk out and reconvene in Baltimore where party business could function.

Southern Democrats moved on without Douglas or his faction. In a separate, Richmond, Virginia convention, Southern Democrats proceeded to nominate Kentuckian John C. Breckinridge.

Back in Baltimore, Senator Douglas indeed gained the Democratic nomination, preserving his precious principle of local voters determining the western migration of slavery. Meanwhile, the Democrats in Richmond took a step further, adding the absolute protection of slavery to their platform. Middle ground had vanished.

Though a long shot, a third faction of the Democratic Party broke ranks with both Douglas supporters, and the Richmond faction. Calling themselves the “Constitutional Union Party,” this coalition nominated John Bell of Tennessee.

So what can we make of this 1860 fiasco today, in 2016? If I could attempt a bit of divination I would suggest that the political party that can present the most united front will prevail in the general election. If current Republican candidates continue to employ such wide-ranging, and scorching tones to their rhetoric, and stubbornly defend the innocence of their loose talk, the party may run head long into oblivion, as did the Democrats of 1860. If the roaring factions, currently represented by each GOP aspirant goes too far, the fabric of unity will shred, crippling the Republican’s ability to field serious candidates in the future.

Looking at the past as prelude much is at stake for the unity of the GOP. In 1860 party divisions nearly destroyed the Democrats, propelling the nation into a bloody civil war. And though Republicans at that time elected our greatest Chief Executive, Abraham Lincoln, the Democrats suffered for decades, marginalized as the party of rebellion. And even the best lessons left by the past are still forgotten in the heat of passion, by those who know better. (The Democrats shattered their party unity once again a hundred years later, splintered by the Vietnam War.) This is truly a cautionary tale for today’s turbulent Republican Party.

Zealots do not compromise, and leading GOP candidates are spouting some pretty divisive vitriol. Southern Democrats self righteously rejected their national party, certain it no longer represented them, and ultimately silenced the party of Jefferson and Jackson for decades. The lesson is clear for today’s Republicans. By tolerating demagoguery, extremism, and reckless fear-mongering in their field of contenders, the RNC may indeed face a similar demise.

Though it is true that no party can be all things to all citizens, malignant splinter groups should not run away with the party.

The American public demands measured and thoughtful candidates—and both parties are expected to field candidates of merit and substance.

We deserve leaders worth following.

As Senator Stephen Douglas refused to recognize that the political skies were falling around him, and his party, the modern Republican Party must not.

Gail Chumbley is the author of River of January, and River of January: Figure Eight a two-part memoir. Available on Kindle

Mischlinge

When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. DJT, June 15, 2015

Government-sponsored horrors aimed at the vulnerable require planning. The target group is first identified, their deficiencies propagandized, then malignant operations begin to remove that group. This age old pattern is a how-to for witch-hunts from 1692 Salem, to Native American extermination, to slavery, and to Joe McCarthy in the 1950’s Red Scare. Other examples in history abound as well, most notoriously the rise of German National Socialism following World War One.

Embittered by the 1918 Armistice, former Corporal Adolf Hitler founded his National Socialist movement in Bavaria. After organizing two para-military gangs, the Brown Shirts and Black Shirts, he led a failed coup attempt in 1923 Munich. This act of revolt landed him in jail, where he penned his infamous tract “Mein Kampf.” The substance of the book raked over grievances, particularly against Jewish people and other “so-called” betrayers of Germany. Hitler was clear in his writing, only genocide would root out Germany’s traitors.

Granted an early parole by a sympathetic judge Hitler quickly resumed leadership of his growing Nazi movement. By January, 1933 he had attained power as Chancellor under German President Paul von Hindenburg. Hitler efficiently made use of his expanding influence in the Reichstag, (German Parliament) to fulfill his unholy mission. Taking incremental steps the Nazi leader began with boycotts of Jewish businesses, then removal of Jewish and other undesirables from employment as civil servants. Soon Jewish students were forced from public schools, permitting only a small quota each year to enroll. By May of 1933 Hitler ordered book burnings of Jewish authors and others he viewed as subversive.

Events accelerated.

When President von Hindenburg died in 1934, Adolf Hitler seized absolute power over Germany. And he wasted no time in dialing up the violence against people he considered vile.

At a 1935 Nazi Party rally in Nuremberg the Fuhrer issued formal classifications of who was Aryan (pure German) and who was Jewish. Known as the Nuremberg Laws, marriages in particular were outlawed between Jewish and Aryan couples. The image above is one document reflecting that Nazi framework, outlining which marriages were permitted by the state and those “verboten” (forbidden).

Hitler insisted these laws were necessary to protect German blood, but the laws also served to isolate not only Jews, but Gypsies, Homosexuals, Jehovah Witnesses, and others. In truth one man defined which human lives were valuable, and those that were expendable.

The ground was prepared for the genocide that would follow.

Dachau was the first extermination camp built in 1933. From that beginning until 1945 the railcars rumbled nonstop to thousands of ash-strewn death camps, while Hitler’s SS liquidated Jewish ghettos of thousands of men, women, and children. By May of 1945 somewhere around 11 million victims perished in a region historians refer to as the “Bloodlands,” including 6 million Jews.

Euphemistically referred to as Racial Hygiene, the Holocaust unfolded gradually and in relative secrecy. However, by the end of the European war and Germany’s defeat the world wondered how this horror could have happened.

We are watching how at this moment.

In Trump’s America that pattern is repeating. The founding of the United States according to Thomas Jefferson insisted that people are born with natural rights, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But from the George Floyd murder to Trump publicly announcing brown people traffic drugs and are rapists, that assumption has been ignored. This administration has taken racial profiling to a criminal level, as this tyrant harnesses the might of the federal government to carry out warrantless abductions.

Even if American citizens are caught up in sweeps, many insist that this is different, and that those taken deserve it. The pieces of evil are all there.

Racial exceptionalism has been the cause of mass suffering from the Armenian genocide in World War One, to Cambodia’s killing fields in the late 1970’s. The signs are all too familiar.

Trump’s makes no pretense of his intentions stating on 60 Minutes that his ICE goons haven’t gone far enough in terrorizing and kidnapping civilians. The sanctioned ongoing violation of civil and human rights has been grinding away as you’ve read this essay.

The United States was meant to be different–a land with freedom from fear, where people are secure in their places and property. This tradition does not rely on one man’s racism and deliberate cruelty. A cautionary tale is replaying, and we cannot escape that past, nor avoid the sinister outcome.

Mischlinge was used by the Nazi’s as a derogatory legal term. Literally mischlinge means mongrel, a person of mixed blood.

Gail Chumbley is the author of the two-part memoir “River of January,” and “River of January: Figure Eight,” co-writer of the screenplay, “Dancing On Air” based on those books. She has penned three stage plays on history topics, “Clay” on the life of Senator Henry Clay, “Wolf By The Ears” examining the beginnings of American slavery, and “Peer Review” where 47 is confronted by specters of four past presidents.

An Open Letter to the GOP

A great deal of chaos has been unleashed in the last 8 months of Republican rule. The leader of the party, Mr. Trump has harnessed the federal system to pursue interests that are exclusively his own. More concerned for opportunities to line his own pockets, leveraging executive power for revenge, and concealing criminal records that compromise his interests appear to take priority. This behavior is not surprising as creating turmoil is Trump’s signature move, evidenced through his trail of bankruptcies, and fraud, to the tune of 88 indictments and 34 convictions.

He is a rapist. 

That is the net sum of the party’s leader.

Perhaps you find solace in arguing Trump was the choice of the people, and since the electoral tilt leaned Republican, you tell yourselves his crimes are irrelevant. By extension, the destruction of law does not bother his base, so why should it bother GOP legislators? 

Because you know better, that’s why. 

The harm? Willfully ignoring that criminality and sanctioning Trump to whip about like an inflatable tube man, deconstructing America’s blueprint of government as he pleases. Perhaps you actually believed him when he said he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and get away with it. Your indifference, or fear of being primary-ed seems to say yes, the party would condone even that.

It isn’t possible you are criminal by nature, surely a desire to serve guided your decision to run for public office, but Trump is a criminal by nature. Yet, the GOP remains on the sidelines rather than insist on transparency to the media or your constituents. This reticence to defend the indefensible speaks of a consciousness of guilt. As handmaidens to Trump, the party is nothing more than accomplices in an ongoing crime spree. 

And those offenses are many. Flagrant. Abuse of power, violation of the emoluments clause, retaliation against his perceived enemies leading to groundless lawsuits, not to forget stealing national intelligence. 

America and the world are witnessing a national smash and grab.

The party is in possession of all three branches of government and yet your stewardship has only made the rich richer, the poor more desperate, the middle class squeezed, and now has closed the United States down. THE UNITED STATES. “The City on the Hill, The World’s Last Best Hope,” We the People,” all closed for business because you have submitted utterly to a remorseless predator.

Soon Trump will have no use for Congress. In Trump-world only one counts and it isn’t any of you, or the rest of us for that matter. The Legislative Branch will atrophy, a fate to which the Supreme Court has already succumbed.

But how about this alternative? What if members were to stand up and vow no more free passes for Trump? Get out there in front of the cameras and announce “I was sent to Congress to do the work of the people, not one man.” Instead of letting him seize ultimate power, you instead take a stand and seize history? 

If any Republican member of Congress who, at this moment, demonstrated the courage of a Jeff Flake, or a Liz Cheney you could break this fever, and save America a lot of suffering. Dear Congressmen and Senators, imagine it, you would prove a honest profile in courage. 

Gail Chumbley is the author of the two-part memoir “River of January,” and “River of January: Figure Eight,” co-writer of the screenplay, “Dancing On Air” based on those books. She has penned three stage plays on history topics, “Clay” on the life of Senator Henry Clay, “Wolf By The Ears” examining the beginnings of American slavery, and “Peer Review” where 47 is confronted by specters of four past presidents.

A Meeting

The following is an excerpt from “Peer Review” a play. The setting is a home in Gettysburg Pennsylvania. The 47th president meets the 16th.

THE TALL MAN

We have all noticed your obsession with political enemies. Mr. Nixon has kept a

particularly close watch on this activity.

DJT

Nixon’s dead, and I don’t care. Look if people aren’t nice to me I’m not nice back. They

all think they’re so much smarter than me. Obama, the Clinton’s, that Puerto Rican chick

from New York. All jerks.

THE TALL MAN

Ha. The Army of the Potomac had generals who thought the same of me. (Pauses)That

reminds me of a time when a client came to my Springfield law office and hired me for a

patent case. The fellow paid a retainer, and I began research on the legal particulars.

Oddly enough I never heard another word about it. Later the newspaper said the trial had

been moved to Cincinnati, Ohio.

DJT crosses his arms pouting. The Tall Man

merely smiles.

THE TALL MAN

Well sir, I made the journey by train to attend that proceeding. To my surprise a new lead

attorney sat at the courtroom table, and pointedly ignored me. Later I learned he had

dismissed me as a long-lanked creature in a dirty coat. Of course my feelings were more

than a little wounded. However I remained in Cincinnati and observed the court

proceedings. There is always something to learn. That attorney, Edwin Stanton, made a

fine job of it, and I later made him my Secretary of War.

DJT

What the hell is wrong with you! All you dead guys are morons. Made him a Cabinet

Secretary. I would have made up a name, you know, like Pocahontas or Shifty Schiff and

never stopped hounding him. I’da ruined the guy.

THE TALL MAN

And that would have proven a mistake. Secretary Stanton proved a wise choice for his

management of the Union Army. Besides, in the words of Mr. Lyndon Johnson, again, it

is “Better to have your enemies inside the tent pissing out, than outside the tent pissing

in.”

The Tall Man laughs and slaps his leg.

THE TALL MAN

Stanton merited the post, as did most members of my cabinet, Seward at State, Chase at

Treasury, Blair as Postmaster General. They had been my competitors for the presidency,

and I appointed these men knowing full well they resented my election.

DJT

You’re crazy. I wouldn’t have let them in the White House. I’m still gonna get even with

the scumbags who stood in my way, DeSantis and Nikki Haley. May not be today, but I

will destroy them. I never forget.

THE TALL MAN

I required sound advice in a difficult time, and that these men were the best, except for

Simon Cameron. There was a scandal and he was undone. Deceivers like Cameron and

Floyd undo themselves. You could learn from their errors.

The Tall Man looks again at his writing, as DJT

speaks.

DJT

Who needs a cabinet anyway. Fill it with dopes who will do as I say. I’m in charge now.

THE TALL MAN

Americans are a free thinking people. Never will they all revere you as does a minority at

this particular moment. You, me, all of us have but a brief time in office. The American

people possess a truth beyond momentary and shifting opinions. Beyond a name on a

map America embraces noble ideals and accomplishes great things.

DJT

Just what I thought, a Rino. You liberals are what’s wrong with America.

THE TALL MAN

Ha. You foolish man. The whole idea of America is Liberal. This nation is the product of

the best political thinking of the 18th Century. It is the sovereignty of the people!

The Tall Man taps the pen on the desk top.

Mr. Madison crafted the Constitution and his Bill of Rights upon the rights of free people.

DJT

America doesn’t care about that anymore. Times have changed. I have changed it. They

want a strong man who gets shit done. Blacks, women, immigrants put back in their

place.

THE TALL MAN

You are mistaken. Only the people are the rightful masters . . .

Gail Chumbley is the author of the two-part memoir “River of January,” and “River of January: Figure Eight,” co-writer of the screenplay, “Dancing On Air” based own those books. She has penned three stage plays on history topics, “Clay” on the life of Senator Henry Clay, “Wolf By The Ears” examining the beginnings of American slavery, and “Peer Review” where 47 is confronted by specters of four past presidents.

A Surreal Landscape

In a scene from Hitchcock’s The Birds locals are gathered in a cafe eating and chatting. An attractive blonde is on the telephone explaining that children at the local school were dive-bombed by attacking crows. An elderly lady in a beret and smoking cigarettes lectures the other diners that crows don’t behave in such an aggressive manner and that there has to be another explanation. The woman identifies herself as an ornithologist and holds forth explaining crows and even seagulls do not do such things. Immediately after her expert testimony all hell breaks loose outside the cafe window, with masses of birds swooping down on passersby. The scene is chaotic and bloody leaving no doubt these attacking birds are in fact lethal. As the nightmare scene ebbs, the camera catches the bird expert, her head bowed in grief and bewilderment, stunned everything she knew and believed no longer applied to any bird in her understanding.

That woman resembles this lifetime American history educator. I’m a fairly decent generalist in subjects ranging from PreColumbian America through today, give or take minutia. But I too, am stunned by the surreal landscape of what I believed about democracy has been easily undone by a vulgar man-child and a compromised and opportunistic Republican Party.

It feels like all my understandings of my country no longer apply. The epic and fraught-filled struggle of forging the Constitution, the furnace of Civil War, the reforms of the Progressive Age, the promise of the New Deal, and Great Society are gone, rapidly destroyed by sinister design. A totalitarian despot has seduced a once noble political party rendering the valiant patriotism of those whom came before moot. Simply writing this lament is difficult, as all I once believed and explored is no longer valid.

An online troll explained it as “no one cares about that anymore.”

That means the principled determination of General Washington to serve our nation doesn’t matter. The misguided genocide of the Five Civilized Tribes upon the Trail of Tears doesn’t matter. With nearly 700,000 deaths, the crucible of Civil War no longer matters. Those brave GI’s on Omaha Beach, (including my own grandfather) and at the Battle of The Bulge no longer matters. Those brave students who occupied lunch counter stools in the face of racial violence did so for nothing. Those boys who perished in the Vietnam War are irrelevant. In point of fact no veteran matters anymore.

American history and all the sacrifice of our forefathers and mothers doesn’t count.

That 47 can fly in a foreign “gift” aircraft with a classified budget is a good thing to do with our tax money. That he remodels a room in the White House in a golden gilt is a good thing. Who really cares if former medicaid recipients suffer.

Suck it up buttercup, these are the new rules of Trump’s America.

That he has done away with investments in the Arts and Humanities is a positive. That he has placed incompetent sycophants from Fox News in high Federal positions is good. Forget he stole top secret intelligence documents. The country elected him anyway. That he has drastically shifted the tax burden onto the middle class and off of the super wealthy is how God wants it, just ask today’s Christians.

That old white men rape girls is a good thing. 

The GOP bows at his feet and gleefully ratifies every stab-wound of domestic legislation is now to be celebrated, so pop a cork. In fact destroying America for profit is now simply wholesome and righteous. 

America’s heroes, like Sergeant Alvin York in the Argonne Forest, or Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain at Gettysburg endured their generations difficulties so that Trump can plow up Mrs Kennedy’s rose garden for a putting green. Suffragette Alice Paul who went on a hunger strike and endured the torture of forced feeding did so that the current president can manipulate votes is just fine. The murders of JFK, Dr King, Harvey Milk, or the murder of Minnesota State Senator Melissa Hortman is merely a part of the 24/7 news cycle.

Indeed nothing of our past story matters because Mr 47 has disqualified all of it to make money, and more money because that’s all that matters today. Plus of course he is a convicted felon and is terrified of going to jail where he belongs.

So when you see this disoriented American History educator with her forehead in her hand, much like the bird expert in the movie, please understand the gravitational pull of her entire life’s work is today rendered null and void. 

Gail Chumbley is the author of the two-part memoir “River of January,” and “River of January: Figure Eight,” co-writer of the screenplay, “Dancing On Air” based on those books. She has penned three stage plays on history topics, “Clay” on the life of Senator Henry Clay, “Wolf By The Ears” examining the beginnings of American slavery, and “Peer Review” where 47 is confronted by specters of four past presidents.

Memory

I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

A Lincoln, March 1861

An American Prayer

Whatever your beliefs it’s time to lift your voice and be heard

O beautiful for spacious skies,

For amber waves of grain,

For purple mountain majesties

Above the fruited plain!

America! America!

God shed His grace on thee

And crown thy good with brotherhood

From sea to shining sea!

O beautiful for heroes proved

In liberating strife,

Who more than self their country loved

And mercy more than life!

America! America!

God shed His grace on thee

And crown thy good with brotherhood

From sea to shining sea

Katherine Lee Bates, Samuel Ward

Gail Chumbley is the author of the two-part memoir “River of January,” and “River of January:Figure Eight.” She has also authored three stage plays, “Clay,” “Wolf By The Ears,” and “Peer Review,” all examining moments in American History. In addition, Gail is the co-writer of a screenplay, “Dancing On Air,” based upon the River books.

Great Things

My America is a place of perpetual greatness, not this dark moment of greed and misconduct. G.C.

Remarks at Gettysburg, 1889

“In great deeds something abides. On great fields something stays.

Forms change and pass; bodies disappear, but spirits linger, to

consecrate ground for the vision-place of souls. And reverent men and

women from afar, and generations that know us not and that we know

not of, heart-drawn to see where and by whom great things were

suffered and done for them, shall come to this deathless field to

ponder and dream; And lo! the shadow of a mighty presence shall

wrap them in its bosom, and the power of the vision pass into their

souls.”

Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain

Gail Chumbley is the author of the two-part memoir River Of January and River Of January: Figure Eight. Chumbley has authored three historical plays, Clay about Senator Henry Clay, Wolf By The Ears, an examination of American slavery, and Peer Review, where 47 meets presidents from the past. Additionally, Chumbley has co-authored Dancing On Air, a screenplay depicting the true adventures of an aviator and showgirl.

An SOS

I sent this letter to my Senators. Feel free to use it how you can.

Dear Senator,

I am reaching out to share my growing dread with this current administration. Arbitrary cuts to government programs, gestapo-like assaults upon peaceable communities and the shrinking of America’s international role is chilling.

As a career history educator I know these actions are decidedly harmful to all of us and that he is attempting to gut the rule of law. It’s as if the United States is drifting into a new Dark Ages and few are standing up for tenets of the Constitution, a hard-won, and hard-defended blueprint of government.

Please restrain yourself from the temptation of pursuing unfettered power, and apply the oh-so-needed brakes on this administration; we are counting on you to hold him to account.

I am a child of the Cold War era and recall the fear of air raid sirens and Soviet attack. But today I am more afraid. What is good about the United States is bad to this administration, and quickly ransacked out of existence, criminals are pardoned, and the guilty go free.

This damage does not fully rest on the White House, he could not carry out his pillaging without the silence of Congress. I implore you to have courage and stand up to this feeding frenzy and let us go back to being America, which still is “the world’s last best hope.”

Gail Chumbley

SLC 

American Expatriates and Celebrities

In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility–I welcome it.  John F Kennedy, 1961

To American expatriates abroad and celebrities remaining at home,

Armed with your fame and recognizable voice all of you hold a public leadership role whether you choose to have one or not. Brave, out-spoken spokesmen for Democracy are a bit short on the ground and America needs her sons and daughters to rise up in defense. 

No one runs us out of our home.

This is not a normal time, nothing about this administration is normal and leaving the country or remaining silent sends a message of throwing in the towel. You are abandoning the rest of us to hold the frontlines the best we can, but your face and words are needed. Too many in the press, in politics, and in the sports world are caving to accept this unacceptable lout out of fear or resignation. That behavior must end.

Charlie Chaplin, Adolph Zukor, and Douglas Fairbanks Jr  sold war bonds during the First World War, Gable and Stewart enlisted in the service to fight Nazi tyranny. Carole Lombard lost her life in a plane crash after raising $2 million dollars for the war effort. You owe it to Dalton Trumbo, Ring Lardner and those of The Hollywood Ten who stood fast for freedom when caught in the fear of America’s Red Scare. Lena Horne, Pete Seeger and Zero Mostel, among others, faced blacklisting through the perilous period of McCarthyism. This is exactly the same ‘once in a generation’ moment testing our commitment to our democratic principles.

Leaving the country or remaining silent sends the terrible message of surrender. And leaving is selfish. Giving up on resistance essentially says to hell with the United States. This is the time when we need you most to stand tall. Liz Cheney hasn’t cut and run, nor has Adam Kinzinger. And he hates them the most because they know he’s an absurd phony. They also know they will never give up on America and neither should you. 

Now that is a valiant example of patriotism. We can do no less.

Those of the future are depending on all of us to make this perilous moment right and to pass on an unsoiled America for generations to come. Moreover, our posterity will learn who stood fast in this momentary struggle for liberty and those who abandoned America in its time of need.

This is merely one chapter in the story of America and we are still a young nation. The United States is founded upon the will of the people and this administration is not your will or mine. Today’s corrupt collaborators who have prostituted our republic for momentary gain will fall by the wayside. These sycophants will share this wannabe dictator’s fate.

And that petty bag of stupid will fail, it is in his DNA. That’s what he’s always done. And there will be a lot of rebuilding ahead of us and your encouraging presence will be critical. No one runs us out of our country, nor do we forsake our duty in time of America’s need. We are not a servile people and do not bow down to anyone. Our rights according to Mr. Jefferson are derived by our Creator, and no one man can take them away. 

America has come so far in realizing A More Perfect Union. The expansion of the vote, black males, women, white and black, Native Americans, and for 18-year-olds. Other gains include people with disabilities, women in the military, reproductive rights, marriage equality, and the election of America’s first black President. And all of us at home have witnessed much of this affirming progress.

So come home, we really need you in our time of peril. We need your voice, your humor, music and the public demonstration of your persistence. That goes for the rest of you with a public profile. You are still here, and we need you to step up. Do not be afraid. Stand fast and speak truth to power.

Be loud. 

Gail Chumbley is the author of the two part memoir River of January, and River of January: Figure Eight. She has also authored three stage plays, Clay, Wolf By The Ears, and Peer Review. Chumbley is the co-writer of Dancing On Air a screenplay based on her River books.