Happy New Year?

As the new year quickly approaches, there is much consternation across the land. The diagnosis of the past year and prognostications for the next year have already begun. Political pundits, left and right, are in fine form spinning the future favoring their ideological and partisan views. Cocksure and arrogant with their solutions, the national malaise continues. Many of us are still huddled close to home, apprehensive about what the future holds for the next year and beyond. It has been an unsettling and downright scary several years, especially the last two with the pandemic continuing to dominate our lives.

Each generation believes that its challenges and problems are the worst ever, of course. The Revolution, the Civil War, the Great Depression and World War II were all momentous challenges; each might be put forth as the greatest, or the most serious ever, but so, we think are ours. The current issues and conflicts are arguably some of the most pressing to ever face our republic.

The challenges facing us are many, elusively difficult to address, but insidious and dangerous to our way of life. There are almost too many to count — climate change, immigration and refugee problems, the energy revolution, potentially threatening foreign affairs, vitriolic domestic issues such as abortion, racial injustice, voting rights, and the possibility of endemic pandemics. The list goes on.

The present climate clearly presents an unprecedented challenge for our generation. We are faced by a “fifth column” that appears vigorous, well-funded and determined to undermine American democracy. It is a viable threat from within, consisting of Republican leaders in Congress and state capitols, a strong minority in the hinterlands, and aggrieved and angry people from all walks of life. This intransigence plays out against the overreach of the present administration to pass sweeping legislation and push partisan goals popular among more extreme Democrats in the party’s ranks. This has only exacerbated attempts at compromise and added to the acrimony that characterizes current politics, both within and between the political parties.

I have only one New Year’s Resolution this year. I will fight in this blog, I will fight at the polls, I will fight in the community and I will fight for the hearts and minds of friends and fellow Americans to right the ship and abandon the insanity of politics that deny the sanctity of elections, defy time-honored law and tradition, and fail to address the reality of the nation’s problems.

In the interim, I wish Americans of all stripes and locales the very best for the coming year.