(Editor’s note: Dr. Jorea Marple, a nationally recognized educator and author based in West Virginia offers her view of what is occurring in Congress and the country. This guest commentary deserves serious thought.)
Has Congress just become a collection of Faust like characters? Have they made a pact with the Devil trading their souls for unlimited worldly pleasures and power? Have they sacrificed spiritual values for earthly gains?
What other reason can it be for turning one’s heart and head from the endless atrocities reaped on this country and world by the Trump administration? Is America still the Home of the Free and the Brave or the Home of the Possessed and Frightened who sacrifice essential values for short-term power with disastrous consequences.
I’m a senior citizen who lives in West Virginia. Every day I wake up, read the headline news and commiserate with friends “that there is nothing we can do about what is happening in this country.” Everyday the news is grimmer, but few people do anything to actively change what is happening. I wonder if we no longer believe in the words of the great poet Emily Dickenson, who urged us not to lose our sense of alarm, of dismay of shock.
Historians still grapple with the Nazi phenomenon and what we should learn from it? The similarities between the rise of Nazi Germany and what is happening in America cannot be discounted or overlooked. Just like the Germans in Nazi Germany, Americans in Trump’s Make American Great Again fall into the same categories: 1.) Many have joined the Trump Tribal Movement early on and can’t seem to distance themselves from their original commitment, not wanting to be seen as having made a mistake; 2.) Many are just afraid of the regime, the intimidation and retribution that may come their way if they resist the movement; 3.) Many, like me, have an overwhelming perception of powerlessness, and 4.) Despite the risks, there are a growing number of individuals and groups who are willing to act.
The need to act has never been more important to the survival of our Democracy. The repeating of what happened in the 1930s and 1940s in Nazi Germany is here and now.
The People must give Congress the courage to act, to resist fear of what might happen to their personal power and stand up to preserve the rights provided by our Constitution.
I don’t know the number, but I imagine a sizeable percentage of the members of Congress had fathers and mothers who fought in World War II. They fought against Hitler’s Gestapo that victimized vast numbers of people through intimidation, retribution and murder.
It only takes one “leader in the right place and in the majority party” to stand up for injustice.
Perhaps our two Republican WV Senators could find courage to begin a movement based on intellectualism and not fear and intimidation. Both had fathers who defended Democracy and fought against the spreading threat of Nazism.
Senator Jim Justice, a recently elected Republican member of Congress, often tells the story of his father, James, Sr. a graduate of Purdue and an Air Force Captain in WWII, who was willing to give his life to fight against the spread of Nazism and Hitler’s Gestapo. James, Sr. co-founded Ranger Fuel in early 1960s and sold it in 1969 for $70 million ($485 million in today’s money). He then formed Bluestone Coal in McDowell County and Sen. Justice worked for his father for two decades. At 19 Sen. Justice went into his father’s office with a problem. He said to his father, ‘Dad there’s nothing I can do, ‘and all of a sudden, the desk explodes and he grabbed me around my shirt and slammed me down against that desk and said, ‘Damn you, there’s always something you can do, and you damn well better always remember that’.
Senator Shelly Moore Capito’s father, Governor Arch Moore, was a decorated WWII combat veteran in the infantry. He fought in Europe and was severely wounded and left for dead. He earned the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star. Governor Moore also served in the US. Congress often voicing his commitment to the service of people. He voted for the Civil Right Act of 1957, 1960, 1964 and 1968 and the Voting Rights Act 1965. Governor Moore would not have supported a “Gestapo,” masked and armed ICE “officers, who are terrorizing, victimizing and murdering people in our cities. Governor Moore would never condone the actions of all who associate with or participated in the attack on our Capitol on January 6, 2021.
I was a teacher and an educator for my entire professional life. Every day, in every classroom the Pledge of Allegiance was recited:
I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation Under God, indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for All.
Now is the time for all members of Congress to take to heart and act upon the words: One Nation Under God, indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all.