Chances are the American flag means something different to each of us. Maybe you raise one outside your house on a flag pole every day. Maybe it's something you want to burn. Maybe it glows for you as it did for your grandparents: a beacon, a light towards which to journey. Maybe it's just red, white, and blue branding.
But now would be a good time to imagine what the flag and the country should stand for, how you might wave it with a sense of resolve.
Maybe the air-tight sheets on a military bed or the perfect press of a soldier’s uniform mean nothing to you. Maybe they remind you of all the people needlessly killed in our wars. Still, now would be a good time to be disciplined and restrained rather than the opposite, to imagine the nation was looking to you to serve, not as a soldier, but as a citizen with a soldier’s commitment, a soldier’s resolve, a soldiers dedication to your fellow soldiers.
Because, sorry lefties, there is nothing to rejoice in now, however tempting that may be. Yes, Mr. Trump has demonstrated once again that his bottomless corruption is matched only by his breathtaking stupidity. He either wanted to do something irresponsible with our highest secrets or he handled the equivalent of radioactive material as if it were take-out pizza.
But smug and righteous won't do. Yes, if the judicial system can in fact put a former president on trial and successfully prosecute him it will be a great achievement for a country and the rule of law. Forget not, though, that the rule of law began to slip away long before Mr. Trump, and began to slip away in part because people with money—as many of them on the left as on the right—bought up the system for their own purpose. The system is rigged is not wrong. And while it will be a triumph and restorative to “lock him up” this must be done because he is someone who broke the law, not because he is a witch who's drowning or burning we would celebrate publicly. No one is above the law means, also, that we shall not debase our nation by making justice look like a circus.
Solemn, disciplined, the job at hand. That is not in the left so often. But it would be good to get there now, to rise up to the times.
And yes, Dear Righties, you will have to rise up too. Not to fight, not in anger, but to a few moments of marching and drills to relearn that the watermark of the country can be no one man. Count the 13 stripes, trace 50 stars and recall that “a decent respect to the opinions of mankind” means we cannot put person before office or maintain a republic without the orderly transfer of power, the rule of law, and a mission to “promote the general Welfare.”
Reflective, empathetic, curious. Now would be a good time for you to rise up in these ways, rather than in arms.