I’m old enough to have witnessed the great sleeping giant of America awaken before.
Joe McCarthy’s communist witch hunt destroyed countless careers before the giant roared: “Have you no sense of decency?”
McCarthy melted almost as quickly as the Wicked Witch of the West. His national popularity evaporated. Three years later, censored by his Senate colleagues, ostracized by his party, and ignored by the press, McCarthy drank himself to death, a broken man at the age of 48.
The giant roared again a decade later, after television showed civil rights marchers getting clobbered by white supremacists. Congress passed the Civil Rights Act.
It roared again after tens of thousands of young Americans were killed in the jungles of Vietnam, finally bringing to an end one of the nation’s costliest, deadliest, and stupidest wars.
It roared again at Richard Nixon after Nixon was heard on tape plotting the cover-up of Watergate — then being forced to exit the White House by helicopter on his way back to California.
It is starting to roar again now — at the sociopathic occupant of the Oval Office who won’t tolerate criticism, who in one wild week revealed his utter contempt for the freedom of Americans to criticize him, to write or speak negatively about him, even to joke about him.
For the full opinion article check out Robert Reich’ opinion piece on his Substack.
Source: https://robertreich.substack.com/p/the-sleeping-giant-is-awakening