Editor’s note: This commentary is by Joseph Gainza, the founder of Vermont Action for Peace and the producer and host of “Gathering Peace” on WGDR and WGDH. He lives in Marshfield.
An open letter to President Donald Trump.
[M]r. Trump, by firing Attorney General Jeff Sessions and replacing him with someone who has openly discussed severely limiting the Mueller investigation, you have aroused the American people. We come together from all over this nation to stop you from undoing our democracy. We are people who you would marginalize and their allies. You will not trample the Constitution, not after so many have struggled mightily throughout the history of this nation to make it include us all.
Perhaps you have forgotten this history, or never knew it. Perhaps you want us to forget it. But we will not, and the rising of millions in defense of our democratic institutions and democracy itself indicates that you have gone too far in your attempts to pit us against one another and establish a white nationalist, authoritarian regime.
Take note of this nation’s history of the expansion of democracy’s reach, Mr. Trump. Failure to honor it may well result in the end of your political career. When in May of 1787 the Constitutional Convention convened in Philadelphia, those gathered established a new government which they called a democratic republic. The preamble to the Constitution they wrote says:
We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
But when 39 of those gathered ratified the Constitution in September 1787 who were the “people”? To the framers, it was them and people like them, white male landowners. Women, African slaves, freed slaves, native peoples, and working people without land were excluded. The great history of this country has been the long, difficult struggle of those excluded to be included as “the people.”
The abolition of slavery, women’s suffrage, the struggle for labor and economic justice, the civil rights movement, and the efforts to include LGBTQ people and people with disabilities were all met by those in power with great hostility and many times violence. Many engaged in these struggles were beaten, arrested, jailed and even killed. But they persisted. And they prevailed. They made this nation take seriously the ringing words of the Preamble and the Declaration of Independence. The struggles are not over but progress has been made.
Now take note of this, Mr. Trump, and those who support your agenda – for we know that you are only a symbol of a deep-seated authoritarian streak in our nation’s psyche, and many who are doing well under the continuing injustice plan to maintain and expand it – the people who are carrying on these struggles are not turning back. No one is going to return to the back of the bus. No one is going to return to the kitchen. No one is going to accept wage slavery. No one is going back into the closet. No one will accept exclusion. You and your allies may have the money and, temporarily the power, but we have the people. And we remember the literal definition of democracy: demos + kratia, “people power.” You have aroused us and we will use that power. We know the struggle will be long and hard; it has always been that way. And we have always prevailed.
We stand united in solidarity, all of us who have been marginalized, and those of us who are their allies.
We reject your white supremacy, your greed, your hate, your violence. We stand together for each other and for the earth. We will continue to lead America into greatness.
