SHUTDOWN PUT FOCUS ON PLIGHT OF 800,000 ‘DREAMERS’

And I say those folks are wrong, or misguided, or just plain lack the understanding of how this real and sometimes cruel world actually works.

Elections really do have consequences. When not enough people of the Democratic, or progressive or moderate persuasion fail to show up for an election, the other side wins. And when the other side wins the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives, then any thought about holding anyone’s “feet to the fire” are pure fancy and wishful thinking.

So what can be done? Well, if you are an American who believes the country is on the wrong set of tracks on any number of subjects, there is an election coming up. Last week, the country saw, perhaps for the first time, women marching and working together across all kinds of socio-economic and political lines toward one common goal. Change. Assuming the Democrats can avoid eating their young as they are wont to do, next year’s Congress could look and act very differently from what we have now.

But that is too many months away.

What can happen now is exactly what Sen. Chuck Schumer’s actions last week have enabled. Now that the entire country has been focused on the plight of the 800,000, the people will demand some action. Already, the White House has advanced a plan it would have never felt the need to advance before the shutdown. Whether you like the terms of President Trump’s “immigration” plan or not, it is a plan. It is a start.

We would have never had even this much had the shutdown not occurred.

So, no, Schumer did not waste our time and those pushing immigration reform need to understand that. We are a government of, by and for the people.

Unfortunately, in Trump’s American democracy that means only of, by and for the people who show up to vote.

Those are the rules until sanity prevails.