And Here We Go

So, we're going to get an impeachment inquiry with the full weight of the Democratic House leadership behind it. Good. We all owe a debt of gratitude to the whistleblower who set this chain of events in motion, but also to all of the people who worked hard to make sure we had a Democratic House right now, the activists who pushed for this outcome, and the House members in vulnerable seats who spoke up to help clear the way, among them seven freshmen members with national security and defense backgrounds whose op-ed seemed to be the final crack in the anti-impeachment wall.

We have so much further to go, and so much more work to do. Whatever happens with the impeachment inquiry, we need to keep working towards winning the 2020 Presidential election. And even before that, there are the 2019 elections, which include some important state contests, the outcome of which will determine how Congressional districts are drawn after next year's census.

There is a rot in our system. In a healthy system, a person as unfit to be president as Donald Trump would not have won the office, and having done so, would have faced much harsher Congressional oversight from the start. In a healthy system, policies favored by large majorities of the American people - background checks on all gun sales,  promoting clean energy, expanding access to public health insurance, for instance - would be able to at least come to a vote in the Senate. In a healthy system, people wouldn't die because they cannot afford their insulin and no one would have to declare bankruptcy due to medical bills. In a healthy system, my kids wouldn't have to do lock down drills. In a healthy system, we would be treating climate change as the emergency it is.

I believe this presidency is a symptom of the rot, and an accelerant of it, but not the ultimate cause. To be honest, I don't know what the ultimate cause is and suspect it may not be knowable in our time. We are too caught up in the system to see it clearly and any diagnoses we make will be filtered through our partisan lenses. But I do know that politicians from one party are standing in the way of the policies Americans want, and they are standing in the way of the progress on climate that the world needs. I don't need to know why that is the case to work to get those politicians out of power.

I am glad the impeachment inquiry will happen. It is a necessary step to check the ambitions of a president who refuses to be bound by the law. But I am going to try to follow it lightly and keep my focus on the work I think needs to be done to put our country, and our planet, on a better path for my children's generation.

In other words, I'll be writing postcards, finding campaigns and organizations who need my money, and keeping my eye out for other things I can do to try to fix this mess that we find ourselves in. I owe it to my kids.