I was five and it was the first day of first grade (I was ahead) and was so pleased to come home and recite my newly-learned lesson of that morning, the Pledge of Allegiance. Of course we learned it by rote, and I hadn’t a clue to its meaning. When I ended with “liver tea and just us for all,” my parents had some ‘splainin’ to do. Plus, it seemed right to end it with “Amen” so I also got a lesson on the separation of church and state that day.
After a series of silly jobs (selling tickets and cocoa on a golf course for XC skiers in winter, correcting college scholarship applications) for a few months after graduation from college, I got my first real job as a policy analyst for the state Assembly’s speaker’s office. The first committee of my own was focused on the operation of government (legislative ethics, reapportionment, veterans and the state National Guard, Native American land claims…) and many sundry unrelated issues. This was the deep end, and I was swimming in it without a life vest.
I learned quickly about policies and politics, gerrymandering et al. I’ve always had a strong moral code about the conduct of elections and of public officials, elected, appointed and everyone from DMV workers to the state fire commissioner (who actually preferred to remain addressing our committee than responding to a fire alarm in the building, a rash decision we were able to talk him out of).
When public service had run its course, I moved on to representing a real estate organization in NYC on legislative and regulatory issues of interest. That was the 1980’s when I became aware of an up-and-coming developer named Trump. At first I wondered why he was such a pariah in the industry, and now I know.
In 2016 when candidate Trump replied that he’d have to see if he would accept the results of the presidential election, a little bell rang. It’s not a presidential thing to say. When he said it again in 2020 the bell grew louder, clanging now.
In my new state (there have been several over the years), I read a blurb about fake electors and thought even Trump wouldn’t do that. Our state is one of the most gerrymandered in the nation and we survived having our duly elected president, Joe Biden, lose the election by one vote on the State Supreme Court. Until a few months ago, Donald Trump was still calling our Republican state senators to get them to throw out the Electoral College designation, replace Biden with Trump and immediately “install” him as POTUS.
I’ve a bone to pick with Donald Trump. There’s been a veritable pit in my stomach since the 2020 presidential election was called for Joe Biden, and the loser, Donald Trump, initiated his multi-pronged assault on a free and fair election. Now, nearly three years later, longer as some of these tactics, like denigrating mail-in ballots, began months before the election, our justice system has finally caught up.
There has been a cloud under which our nation has been for the past two years, and it’s been more difficult in the seven swing states that voted for Biden and have been under exhaustive attacks by Trump and his enablers, including our US Senator, Ron Johnson who tried to deliver fake elector slates of Michigan and Wisconsin to former VP Mike Pence on the afternoon of January 6, 2021. They wanted our legislature to delete all Wisconsin’s 3.3 million votes and give them all to Trump.
I believe in our Constitution and have chosen, since I learned the Pledge of Allegiance, that I like living in a democracy and will not give it up for ANY dictator’s authoritarian regime. I only hope my fellow Americans agree with me, read Special Counsel Jack Smith’s indictment, support the jury’s decision and vote for democracy. I’m proud to be an American and to support one person, one vote. Televise the trial, 150 million voters, crime victims all, deserve to see it live and from the horse’s mouth. Dee
Cooking with Dee 