By Carol Lucas
The circus came to town last week. Did you see it? Perhaps you were unable to or even chose not to. Nevertheless, it came to town.
Oh, not to Beaufort, but to Washington. That circus! As I watched Groundhog Day repeatedly play itself out, I couldn’t help but be reminded of the song from A Little Night Music entitled “Send in the Clowns.”
One stanza asks, “Don’t you love a farce?” and I couldn’t help but laugh, albeit a bit nervously, as I wondered what underlying implications of this buffoonery I might be missing. How was this going to impact upon our government, indeed our society, as we know it? Was this display indicative of things to come? Insurrection of another ilk?
The procedure called for the election of the Speaker of the House of Representatives. How difficult should that be, given that it had taken place so many times before? When perhaps the most clownish of all offered up Donald Trump’s name in nomination, an obvious mockery of the process, I felt nothing but shame. My mind was roiling as I watched and wondered what other countries must surely be thinking.
There was an attempt to make light of this sham on the part of many Republicans who chose to declare that this was “democracy in action, indeed democracy at its best.” Really? How many times have we watched congressional bodies of other countries devolve into chaos and shake our heads in dismay or even disgust?
We might have asked, where is the dignity and integrity of such an august body of people representing their country? All these questions swirling around like sagebrush in the desert.
The irony of the date, January 6 wasn’t lost on anyone; this was simply chaos of another order. As deadly as that of two years ago? Perhaps not in the literal sense of lives lost but rather in the sense of a loss of values that history will surely evaluate.
I have said so many times that as an octogenarian, I don’t worry about myself. I do, however, worry deeply about my children and my grandchildren and what will face them.
Yet part of me takes heart because on this same day, January 6, 2023, another scene was playing out, truly a study in contrast. One that was at once heartwarming and heartbreaking.
Not that far away from the chaos of the House, a memorial and dedication was taking place. The Presidential Citizens Medal was being bestowed upon those who had put their lives on the line to preserve our democracy.
As I watched the ceremony, I couldn’t help but be struck by the diversity of the recipients: young and old; women and men; Black, White, and Hispanic; a wife accepting on behalf of her deceased husband; parents accepting on behalf of their deceased son; those whose integrity surpassed their own ego and selfish need to preserve “their position” (unlike what we were seeing happen simultaneously in the House of Representatives).
Make no mistake. Our democracy is on shaky ground. It was Arizona Republican Rusty Bower, medal recipient, who said, “We have a choice to do the right thing.” Sadly he lost reelection because of his stance.
Is this what we condone? Punishment for doing the right thing? At what point in this very contentious time are we going to be Americans rather than Republicans or Democrats, conservatives or liberals? I like to think of myself as an Independent. Yes, I lean toward the Democratic viewpoint, but I also recognize that extremism exists there as well. Extremism on either side simply won’t work. And as an offshoot of that statement, neither will populism, but that is an issue for another day.
I hate to think that compromise has become a dirty word, and yet that seems to be the case. Most historians see history repeating itself, and while I have looked at some of the comparisons, I won’t address them here. I do believe, however, that the next two years represent a pivotal time in our country.
I take some heart in information I discovered regarding how laws are made. To encapsulate, a representative sponsors a bill that is then assigned to a committee to study. If released by that committee, it is put on a calendar to be debated and voted upon. If it passes by a simple majority (218 of 435) it moves to the Senate where the same process occurs.
Again, a simple majority (51 of 100) passes the bill. Finally, a conference committee of House and Senate members work out the differences, thus returning the bill to both branches for final approval. The President has 10 days to sign or veto.
Sorry for the overload of procedural information, but this is something I believe we all should know as we embark on the upcoming days when our fears may become overriding. We can only hope that those in Congress who want to see our government in shambles, and they do exist, will be stymied somewhere along the path of the information provided above.
We may be confronted with a time when a log jam that produces nothing is status quo. Sadly, those affected most are those who can least withstand the impact. The best will be a miraculous turnaround of attitude, that of working for the people, you know, the ones who voted for those who hold the power to make or break our democratic system.
In the meantime, a few prayers wouldn’t hurt.
