Chuck Schumer’s ten months my senior. We’ve met a few times over the decades because he’s also my Senator. Each time we’ve conversed he’s told me how to do my job. His haughtiness nettles. No matter. He’s one of my army’s commanders during this civil war. If he says jump, I jump. While the guns blaze, differences must give way to discipline, many – as our national motto exhorts – must become one. Cavil with pals, OK, but in public salute.
Our army is united by a single objective: to defy, defeat, destroy the Nameless One and replace him and his pilferers, polluters, and punks with old-fashioned patriots, folks who work for the good of all, not the goods of a few. My job in this vast scary contest is cheerleader. I never respected cheerleaders with their pom-poms and somersaults; I yearned to be on the field, calling the plays, the cynosure of attention and bearer of my people’s hopes – to be THE MAN! No longer. I’m too old and ill-equipped; I’ve neither the wit nor grit to lead. But I want to do my bit. Singing songs is all I’m good at – so let me bellow like a bull.
Sing, salute, and shut up.
My fellow partisans are inept at shutting up. That’s because we think and our thoughts seek utterance. No surprise that our ranks are disproportionately populated with teachers, preachers, scientists, reporters, factfinders, college grads. Yes, this is a war between the haves and the have-less, but it’s also a contest between the stupids and the smarts. That sounds stuck-up and elitist, but it’s what the data shows and what we all sense in our impolite interiors. “Low information voters,” they’re delicately styled in the press, that is, folks who don’t know what the f**k is going on, foisted this felonious fatso on us as the world’s supreme leader. Now – surprise! – they’re waking to his depravity: Gosh, what have we wrought! And the leaders of our army, unused to wartime conditions, are flailing to figure how best to respond.
I wouldn’t be an officer now, not for love or money. And I’m surely not going to savage my commanders if I dispute their tactics. In peacetime, sure, flap my trap – pluralism is a privilege of peace. But during war, all must hup to, speak when spoken to, sing, salute, shut up.
Was I disappointed when those eight Senators – our own field generals – voted to end the government shut-down? You bet. I’m spoiling for a climactic battle, to follow our team’s big Election Day win with a one-two punch. But I am not a general; compared to them, I’m a low-information voter, and must trust in their desire to do right. Please, friends, don’t turn our guns on ourselves! Sign up – then shut up.
War takes getting used to. The Nameless One and his thugs have been prepping for a decade – and they’re indifferent to truth, which gives them an initial edge. They’re whizzes at singing, saluting, shutting up, acclaiming their messiah with a mindless roar. We the people must learn to coalesce, cohere, collaborate, and, yes, alas, obey. Obedience is not weakness when cohesion is required. To rescue freedom of expression we must curtail freedom of expression – till the guns hush.
Frantically we feel for our ultimate commander, our Washington, Lincoln, Ike, in whom we repose our trust. Promising players are auditioning for the part. The sooner the better. Meanwhile it behooves us to trust the leaders we’ve got – shout at them, sure, but don’t shoot. Sing, salute, shut up. We’ll lose battles, plenty, but let’s win the war.