Paul Tonko, United States House of Representatives

2369 Rayburn HOB, Washington, DC 20515

Kirsten Gillibrand, United States Senate

478 Russell, Washington, DC 20510

Charles Schumer, United States Senate

322 Hart Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C. 20510

 

Dear sirs and madam:

I am a one-month-shy-of-seventy-six, third generation American citizen.  In my lifetime, I have borne witness to turmoil and existential chaos brought about by bad intentions and miscalculations of politicians and financially empowered public citizens in this country and around the world.  I marched for Civil Rights and to end the war in Viet Nam and while I could most certainly have done more, much, much more, I never wavered in my support of making ours a more perfect nation.  Somehow, even the assassinations of Kennedy, Kennedy and King, the lawlessness of Nixon, the recklessness of Reagan’s trickle and the simple-mindedness of W, I could envision the glass as being more full.  I could never have imagined Trump and his hypnotic effect on millions of Americans who had been feeling marginalized and neglected, and never would I have believed that the Republican Party would fully embrace his amorality.  Today, with little creative conjecture, I can see the end of the American dream looming over the not-so-distant horizon.  I blame you.

If there are angels, without question, I believe that Democrats, for the most part, are on the side of the better ones.  Since at least the 50’s, the fights for social justice and fairness have been, with very few exceptions, those of Democrats.  I have always felt that politics was messy and corrupt, but the Republican agenda, (when they used to have one), never seemed to include even a shred of compassion and in the Trump era, (can it really be less than six years?), it has become a malignant cancer, eating away at two hundred-fifty years of baby-stepping toward a better democracy.

Why I blame you:  The world is a giant spinning ball of propaganda.  Populations are rarely manipulated by the presentation of factual information, but by emotional, often fear-based rhetoric delivered with unflinching charismatic confidence.  Goebbels was a master, Roy Cohn had the knack, Putin’s Medinsky, like the most popular of the Fox News talking heads, can report that black is white with a stern and passionate straight face.  You are a bunch of whiners.  It makes no difference that what you say is gospel.  Your message is not cutting through.  The conundrum is that those being drawn to the dark side by blustery buffoons like Tucker Carlson, shouting MAGA slogans and storming the Capital, are being bamboozled by tribal zealotry into embracing leaders and policies that are diametrically opposed to their own welfare.  With barely seven months before Democracy may be lost forever, with all the brainiacs at your disposal, you still have no counter punch.  State after Republican-controlled state is legislating away hard-fought freedoms and protections for women, LGBTQ and the environment and if you don’t do something by November, the law of this land will soon be a law that neither you nor anyone I know and love could ever imagine being bound by.

Here’s what I propose:  Today, without delay, enlist an army of regular, concerned citizens across America. Create a plain-talking syllabus about economic inequality and health care and climate change disaster and our third world education system.  It needs to be as scary for the right reasons as the fear-mongering lies spewing from Fox and OAN.  Have the army go door-to-door calmly, without the orchestrated chaos of town halls and school board meetings, point out why there is only pain and suffering from whatever Republicans have in mind.  Not one Hispanic or Black or Asian has a place in the Republican coloring book of the future.  Unfortunately, I’m not smart enough to know how to make this happen…but you do.  If you ponder, if you business-as-usual-this-through-some-cockamamie-committee, we are lost.

Please, save America!

Yours truly,

Joel Moss