Time to answer Trump with non-violent resistance

“What did you do in the war, Daddy?”

Had I faced that question at the time of Vietnam, I would have been filled with answers and star-spangled pride: As a college kid at the time, I protested, demonstrated, made my voice known.

Where is my voice now? Surely, July 4 is an appropriate time to set off some emotional and verbal fireworks, fueled by heartfelt concern that there is an ongoing battle now, and I must prepare my answer for when the question of my role in it eventually comes calling from Hannah, my 9-year-old.

But this war is a civil war fought in an uncivilized manner, on a different battlefield, where the bombs bursting in air are of the oratory kind, with democracy demonized as the enemy in belligerent blasts from a loud-mouthed leader who should know better. But he doesn’t. As President Trump tramples on the Constitution and common sense, hanging a fake noose around any argument he doesn’t like, he seems to be doing so with impunity. If the only protest I can muster is a shake of the head at headlines that scream idiocy from the computer screen, he will win his personal battle of the bilge.

My wife, who grew up in the Soviet Union, says she has heard this all before – demonizing of the press; facts filtered through a funnel of lies; scaring up scapegoats for the role of enemies of the state; dissent damned and vilified. But her country’s history called their villainous leader not Trump but Stalin.

Has fascism suddenly become fashionable in the divided states of America,

overseen by rudderless Republicans and dithering Democrats? As Trump defends and deflects on charges that change every day and his reasoning so out-of-this-world that surely someone should demand his birth certificate for proof he was born in New York not Bizarro World, where are the protests? The marches? The sit-ins? Why isn’t TV news filled with images of demonstrations for democracy rather than Trump’s tweets bordering on the treasonous?

“What did you do during the war, Daddy?”

My peaceful, resourceful call is for insurgency against insouciance, to take up arms – the physical non-violent kind – to embrace the power of protest, to give a shout-out to the ’60’s with shouts of “1 2, 3, 4 ...,” to put down the iPads and pick up the picket signs.

This uncivil war needs some civil rites of action against a president celebrating July 4th while contemplating taking the Fifth.

Hannah, I’m now ready for your question.