Right now, I’m at a small journalism conference where they’ve convened local newsrooms, funders, news influencers and media strategists. I’ve had no fewer than five women stop me and ask if I’m OK, and I’ve done the same in turn. We’ve heard that one of our friends had a team member swatted because of their work with immigrant communities. On the other hand, it’s been terrific to catch up with colleagues and to learn about grandkids, engagements and new houses. I sat with one industry leader, and we concluded that our lives are great but that our country is in peril. It’s tough to reconcile these things.
This week, Caroline Kennedy released a letter denouncing her first cousin Robert Kennedy Jr.’s bid to become head of Health and Human Services. To say the letter was scathing from a woman I’ve always thought of as very careful is an understatement. She showed us behind-the-scenes moments of RFK Jr.’s drug addiction and how he pulled other cousins down the primrose path. I spent much of this week screaming at the TV as he testified before Congress while sputtering nonsense and, by all accounts, denying that he said a number of things he clearly said.
The times are changing, and they are disturbing. RFK Jr. represents a clown car of nominees the Trump administration keeps trotting out to run things they have no experience running. At the same time, my 5-year-old nephew is in a tug of war with his mom over his pillow, which is actually her pillow that he no longer wants her using when he’s not at her house. These two stay in a tussle about something, and they give me joy, yet the barbarian at the American gate has me worrying incessantly about this.
Right now, I’m torn between the joy of real life and the disastrous national leadership we are experiencing. People from most declining democracies and republics throughout history must have felt something similar. I’ve read letters from pre-WWII Germans who moved from “we’re worried” to “we’re scared.”
Hitler came to power in 1933. Almost immediately, he forced Jews out of their civil-service jobs, and Dachau was constructed for “political prisoners.” It will come as no surprise that it was ultimately a concentration camp. The rest took much longer, ending with millions of Jews, disabled, gay and Romani folks being killed. These letters and historical records show that everyday life isn’t always the first thing affected at the hands of a “strong man.”
It’s hard to listen to bad news and worse news. A lot is being thrown at us at once, and I suspect the plan is to confuse and wear us down. In my faith, the devil is an agent of confusion and disorganization and a peddler of fear. Now more than ever, our fight is about good versus evil. There’s not a lot of nuance and gray area. I hope that time returns, but that is not where we are. The Bible tells us the race is not given to the swift, and I believe that. But we must keep running it to deflect any evil that comes our way.
This MFP Voices opinion essay does not necessarily represent the views of the Mississippi Free Press, its staff or board members. To submit an opinion for the MFP Voices section, send up to 1,200 words and sources fact-checking the included information to voices@mississippifreepress.org. We welcome a wide variety of viewpoints.
