Although many of us try to forget, the before January 2021 times, have a way of lingering in our memory like a dusty drape covered in cobwebs we can't quite shake off.
But, we can never forget the past, because forgetting opens the door for repeating and we can’t do that.
Instead, we want to take you all the way back to November 8th, 2016 – it was election day and it was clear what was at stake. So many of us started that night eager to witness the first woman president smash the final glass ceiling.
We didn't know it then but that's not the ending we got. And if the years that followed taught us anything it's what is at stake when we think something is guaranteed.
It was a dark time, John. Tuning in the news every day felt like bracing for impact. It began with the racist and discriminatory Muslim ban, and never ceased from there.
The massive tax cuts for corporations and the wealthiest Americans. The apologizing for white nationalists and neo-nazi's (the "very fine people" he said they were). Perhaps worst of them all – separating families at the border and putting children in cages.
It was policy after policy of cruelty and callousness. Then, somehow, when it seemed it couldn't get any worse – the pandemic hit. The ineptitude and disinformation spread from the before-times president caused so much mass death and destruction – we're still picking up the pieces.
But, then, we won and we ousted our reckless leader through relentless hard work, determination, and serious organizing.
Yet, there are still a great many, including our own Mike Garcia, who want to return us to these terrible times, but we cannot let them succeed.
We're not going back, John. Not with so much at stake, including the very fabric of our democracy.
