Democracy

 Last night Janet and I attended our Representative Becca Balint's town hall in Montpelier. Vermont is one of those odd little states which, because of a small population, only has one Representative (but two Senators). I liked Balint before the town hall, and now I like her a lot more. It's hard to feel particularly optimistic in this age of autocracy, but hearing her ideas and witnessing her fire gave me more hope. She's certainly not Doctor Pangloss, but she shared a realistically, fairly optimistic view of how things can get better. She talked about the need to win in 2026 and win big, a true national referendum against this authoritarian nightmare, but also the need then to go beyond simply peeling back Trump's policies, but to be much more progressive; she said, and she's definitely correct, that the system before Trump's destructive policies was hardly a fair one, and we have to move beyond it. Personally, I think that if the Democrats don't recapture their New Deal/Great Society roots I don't know if they can win, and, well, it's sort of difficult for me to see what purpose they even serve as a party if they continue this utterly corporate path.

It was a packed house, and I almost felt like I did after 9/11 or when I received my first COVID shot, in that just being in a crowd with other people made me feel a lot better. Several times I became pretty emotional, which is not particularly surprising, I guess, but it hit me how I'm going to miss this little brave group of lunatics.