The question keeps coming up; “Why isn’t the resistance catching fire?”  Yes there are demonstrations, and they grow as a form of expression that could be called the safe theater of the political.  In the past that theater could nudge a nation of conscience right or left significantly.  Things are very different these days so set aside the matches. The demonstrations were probably very heartening to the resistance of the current set of circumstances and a very good start. But how many minds were changed? How many new relationships were built? How much closer did those passionate choirs bring us to a majority? For the current administration I sometimes felt it was a ‘let them eat cake’ moment while the nation’s “leadership” golfed. 

This administration is testing the courts by simply ignoring the rule of law. Given the latitude that Supreme Court gave the executive power, there seems no apparent motivation to pay any more attention to a demonstration than there is to obey a court order you don’t like.  But still and all, the Supreme Court still holds the key to what the message of resistance is going to be.  If the Court supports those federal judges making adverse rulings regarding disappearing people (thinly disguised as legal deportation) and the targeted starvation of congressionally approved support for education, aid to vulnerable peoples, etc,  the resistance will take one path. But if the Supreme Court buckles and abandons what the Constitution calls the Judiciary Branch, the resistance will have to go the another way. 

Setting oneself on fire before you know where your movement is going is sad self-immolation with no practical message. Hopefully we can create a new more inclusive message that guides the Constitution through this minefield, but to carry all our previous political baggage with us through this explosive gauntlet will be impossible. The progressives tend to be a hoarders of their ideologies which for the future is a fatal habit. Good decisions must be made. Building new relationships and streamlining the message of democracy is necessary for conservative, liberal, and centrist beliefs and views. The new big tent must travel light out of a backpack eating virtuous commitment for breakfast, lunch and dinner. For those of us in the last quarter of our lives there may be no happy ending to this, but at least our endings can be meaningful, filled with love, purpose, and a new different community of solidarity.  Good is, as the saying goes, ‘paying it forward’ into the future.