In February, 2015, I had a strange dream. I dreamed about the Republican Convention coming up in 2016. You need to understand, this was a year and a quarter before the convention. Jeb Bush was not yet in the race, neither was Trump, nor was most of the field. Even Hillary had not yet formally announced. And since this was February, 2015, Scalia was still sitting on the supreme court.
I looked around the room, and in addition to all the delegates and their families were all the VIPs. The Koch brothers and their families were there, Sheldon Adelson and his entourage had a section, along with bank executives, oil executives, and other corporate groups. The NRA had their own section. I was surprised to see that the conservative members of the Supreme Court were also there. But no Scalia. And I remember thinking to myself, of course Scalia isn’t there, he is dead. (Remember, not only was Scalia not dead yet, he wasn’t even on anybody’s death radar yet.)
There was a special room that Fox News was broadcasting from, as well as their reporters being all over the floor. NBC had some reporters in the room but I saw Rachel and Lawrence broadcasting from their New York studios, explaining that they had not been granted access to the convention. I thought this was odd.
I dreamed that the convention was reaching a climax, and they were about to introduce the winning candidate for the acceptance speech. I could not tell who was going to the podium to accept the nomination, but I could see that it a he, was not Bush, was too heavy to be Scott Walker, but I had no idea who it was.
All I knew was, as he got to the podium and took the microphone, there was an enormous earthquake. People started screaming. MSNBC lost their feed. Shep Smith was anchoring from Fox headquarters and not from the site, and he lost the feed. Everyone was scrambling to get the feed.
Soon it was clear that the entire arena had collapsed on the convention. Everybody inside was dead – over 80,000 people.
Understand who attends conventions. It is the key people from the party from every county in every state. It is their representatives. It is their senators. It is their state legislators. It is their governors, their lieutenant governors, attorneys general and secretaries of state. It is their county officers, the district captains and their biggest movers and shakers. Everyone with political influence from the party is there. And all would be in the room for the acceptance speech. This earthquake killed all of them. In most states, the entire GOP was wiped out.
I remember Rachel getting some feed from somewhere and commenting on the ruin. I remember that President Obama looked at the party, looked at the carnage, and was helpless to do anything but work to put things back together again.
I woke up. The convention was still months away. I looked at the map of earthquake faults and fracking and soon I realized that this dream was a metaphor. What I didn’t know, and what still has to be determined, at least in my mind, was whether it was a metaphor for the end of the Republican party or our country. Did the political earthquake that occurred in Cleveland in 2016 signify that the Republicans were done or that our democracy was done? I still don’t know.
I do know this. I have sat here and watched for 2 years while people have tweeted and facebooked about how bad this administration is. I have read news articles that show a level of corruption that is breathtaking. I have seen public officials shake their heads and speak grave words.
I have seen voter suppression at a level I would have thought impossible. I have seen our health care gutted and I have seen reports of people who have lost their medical coverage and died for lack of insulin. I have seen children in cages. I have seen white supremacists called good people. I have seen shootings, and I have seen children die. I have seen women lose their rights. I have seen environmental regulations rolled back and our national parks handed over to fossil fuel interests. I have seen things that I thought could never happen in this country. But I have not seen sustained protests in the streets.
I have seen a few days of protests. At first, more than now. But they were all one day at a time. I have seen many people saying how bad everything is. They said wait until after the 2018 elections, and I was ok with that because obviously nothing could be done in the house with the majority GOP. They all said, when we get evidence of wrongdoing, the people will come around. Then they said wait for the results of the Mueller report. But the GOP had a plan for that. He buried the report. Now they say, wait until Mueller testifies. Wait until, wait until, wait until.
How long should we wait? How many people have to die or be destroyed before we act? What does it take? I ask this question and people say, “I can’t take off work. I can’t go to protests. It is too hard.”
It is hard. It was hard for the soldiers at Valley Forge. It was hard for the Freedom Riders. It was hard for the marchers on Selma. It wasn’t exactly easy for me to go to the protests to gain civil rights, an end to the war in Viet Nam, voting rights for 18 year olds, or women’s rights. But I did my marching. Last year, regretful that I hadn’t followed up after we thought we had those rights won, I ran for office.
I see many who are hurting who ask us to march for them because it is too hard for them to march. But I won’t march for you. You have to march. You who are most affected by this tyranny have to march. It is your future you have to fight for. My future is behind me, yours is ahead of you.
Was the earthquake and destruction about the GOP or the country? That is still undecided. It is up to those who will be hurt the most. You have to march for yourselves. I won’t march for you. But I will march with you.