First through the Door

Where are they?

“I WANT to be first through the door, Dad. That’s who I am.”

My favorite scene in Chicago PD features two father/son police officers handling a delicate conversation about why one chose to take an easier street-cop route; the other a front-line intelligence-unit job that lives life on the violent edge of justice.

“I wanted to be there for you, to go to your games and coach your teams, to be sure I came home at the end of the day,” his dad responds. “I know what I did, but I don’t regret it.”

There is no simplistic black/ white, tough/ weak frame to ruin the tenderness between them as they lay out their choices and admit the cost to them both.

I honor the respect they find in that scene, but right now I am desperate for our country to find some leaders who want to be first through the door.

Listening to Stephen Miller yesterday on CNN, laying out, with megalomaniacal glee, his theory of a world ruled by the fist, by strength and power and brute force, the notion of strongly worded letters, and scheduled hearings and investigations feels wholly inadequate. Where are our elite units? The ones who know how to fight fire with fire without degrading democratic values. Where are the statesmen who confronted Richard Nixon and said this cannot go on, and you must resign? Where are the legal warriors who know how to bring chaos to its knees, not complaints to a clerk?

Are we so hamstrung by a constitution written with the assumption that every future leader would accept its premises: the rule of law, the judicial process, the voter’s choice, that we do not know what to do when that is clearly not the case?

This administration accepts none of these values, and they have not been subtle about declaring that.

Democracy’s team has a deep bench. People like Pete Buttigieg who could step in as Secretary of State tomorrow; talented lawyers and prosecutors like Jack Smith and Kamala Harris who know how to cross-examine a witness and prove guilt to a court. And more than enough charismatic politicians like Gavin Newsom and JB Pritzker to deliver political speeches that inspire. Even Bernie Sanders has not lost a step in his decades- long advocacy for the common man.

What we do not seem to have is the moral equivalent of the amoral Mitch McConnell, who used every tool of the Senate to sabotage bipartisan government.

What we do not have is the wisdom of a Joe Biden whose 50 years in the Senate made him a master of the rules and how to use them to leverage progress.

What we do not have is the elite strike force that knows when and how to turn evidence of DJT’s declining mental capacity, his increasingly erratic and floridly illegal behavior into a tool that can overcome the power of a silent cowardly GOP Congress.

Where are Democracy Defenders willing to be first through the door?

Wait until November, the pollsters say confidently. Can we last that long, I wonder? Will the voting system DJT promised we will never “need again” be so compromised that even floods of blue voters will not be enough to ensure a fair vote count?

I am an optimist at heart, and I see many signs that the tide is turning against fascism among everyday Americans. But the system being built to support fascism is getting stronger. The question I have is not what Americans want, but what will they be able to achieve if we wait much longer?

Where are the good guys willing to be first through the door?