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There really is only one solution.
As we try to navigate the horrors of repeated gun massacres, it is so obvious that action is stalemated by 50 Republicans in the Senate in the face of support by 90% of our citizens to take comprehensive action to control America's gun culture. How is it with that kind of support, our representatives blindly accede to the gun lobby? It is our own fault. We must retake our right to vote from those who want to prevent us from exercising as a majority.
The fact of the matter is that the overwhelming majority of Americans want significant action on this and every other major issue that grinds our society into little pieces. But all action is foiled by legislators and a party that wants to preserve their cash contributions from the gun lobby. Greed trumps murder.
So how is it that with overwhelming support for change and regulation nothing happens? The problem is deeper and more serious. What we are experiencing is a broken representative government. Our republic is hostage to minority rule.
The Republican party is hell bent on twisting and gerrymandering our redistricting process. They are singularly focused on passing laws that put election control in their hands to the extent that they can unilaterally decide to ignore actual voting results. Our representative government is corrupted by an archaic electoral college process that has enabled Republicans who do not win the popular vote to secure office. Republican Presidents who have not won the popular vote are able to stack the Supreme Court with arch conservative justices, especially with the help of Mitch McConnell who thumbed his nose at the Constitution and illegally prevented a popularly elected president from fulfilling his constitutional duty to appoint a Supreme Court justice.
Worse than that, we have Republicans who represent all of us in the Senate and the House who are cowards! They are not leaders. A leader would DO something in the face of this mass carnage.
What is the answer? We have no other mechanism now except to choose people who will actually lead and work for us. We must recapture the ballot box. If our republic is to survive, we must vote for people who will work for us and not simply posture for greed. If we do not vote for good people who are honest and believe in our Constitution, then we are doomed as a democracy---sooner rather than later.
There are more of us than there are of them. Let's take our country back. Vote for people with morals and a conscience. That's what the founding of America was based on--not the acquisition of power at whatever cost. A friend of mine, Peter Yarrow, from Peter, Paul, & Mary, gives us all a plaintive, melancholic, moment to think about what we must do.
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