Friends,
My father died 10 years ago today. I still miss him.
Ed Reich was a good man. He was a loving husband and father. He was loyal and kind to his friends. He worked hard, six days a week. He contributed to his community.
Ed Reich would have loathed Donald Trump.
That’s not because my father was a liberal Democrat. In fact, for most of his life he was a Republican. He began voting Republican in 1936. The first time he cast a vote for someone who became president was in 1952 when he voted for Dwight Eisenhower. He didn’t give up on the Republican Party until it nominated Richard Nixon in 1968.
But my father hated bullies. He fought in World War II against Hitler.
When I was a boy, whenever my father saw the image of Senator Joseph McCarthy on our tiny television screen, he yelled “son-of-a-BITCH!” so loudly that I hid under the couch. (It took me years before I learned that “son-of-a-BITCH” was not a Yiddish word.)
He thought anyone who had to bully someone else to feel good about himself was despicable. If they did their bullying through politics, they were doubly despicable. In my father’s mind, political bullying had led to the Holocaust.
My father admired people who stood up to bullies, such as Maine’s Republican Senator Margaret Chase Smith, whose Declaration of Conscience speech on June 1, 1950, condemned McCarthy’s tactics and defended the right to criticize, protest, and hold unpopular views and beliefs.
My father also admired CBS News’s Edward R. Murrow, who exposed McCarthy, and Army counsel Joseph Welch, who during the Army-McCarthy hearings of 1954 asked McCarthy: “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?”.
Every generation has its bullies, some worse than others. And every generation has its heroes who stand up against the bullies.
High on my list of heroes who have stood up to Trump is Liz Cheney. I disagreed with most of her votes in Congress, but on the biggest threat to our democratic system since World War II, she displayed unwavering courage.
History will also give a special award for heroism to the people of Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota for what they accomplished over the past terrifying two months. “They thought they could break us, but a love for our neighbors and a resolve to endure can outlast an occupation,” said Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey.
As two-time national curling champion Rich Ruohonen — also from Minnesota and the oldest American ever to compete in the Winter Olympics — told reporters covering the winter games:
“We have inalienable rights in our constitution: Freedom of press, freedom of speech, the right to not have unreasonable searches and seizures and not be pulled over for, you know, without probable cause. And those rights aren’t being followed in Minnesota.”
I was also struck this past week by the integrity and courage of the grand jurors who refused U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s instruction to indict six Democratic lawmakers — all veterans of the military or the intelligence community — who posted a video in November reminding active-duty members of the military and intelligence community that they were obligated to refuse illegal orders.
Those brave jurors were ordinary Americans — like the people of Minneapolis — who accomplished the extraordinary by saying no to bullies.
I haven’t even mentioned Bad Bunny, who this past week reminded Americans that Puerto Ricans are also Americans and that racial and ethnic diversity is woven into the fabric of the nation.
My father was proud of America, and he lived a long and good life. Were he alive today, he’d be 112.
If he witnessed America’s growing resistance to the bully-in-chief, he’d be proud of all of you who continue to fight against the squalor of Trump and the scourge of his regime.
This post has been syndicated from Robert Reich, where it was published under this address.