Banana/maga Republic

Sitting around the extended family table during Thanksgiving-tide, discussions somehow degenerated to subjects that were dangerously close to politics. I made the mistake of mentioning to an in-law relative that our Republic was delivered from insurrectionary disaster by one brave Vice President. The defender of our Constitution was, on January 6, 2021, Mike Pence. Now it is popularly believed that trump chose Pence as his VP in 2020 because it was a favorable political arrangement. . . a Republican ticket led by a bad boy, but with a good boy strung along just to keep things decent. In our little confab around the big table, one member responded to my comment about Mike Pence with a statement that the Capitol police had set barricades aside so that the the crowd could enter the building. Say what? She must have watched the edited/redacted video versions that had been presented, a year or so ago, by some GOP guppy who was fishing for excuses about the insurrection, or maybe by some foxy video editor whose mission was to spoil the vines of public journalism. The videos I had seen, supplemented by hours and hours of testimony from the House Jan6 Committee enquiry - those videos were a visual testimony that the attackers at the Capitol had not gathered for a walk in the park, or a stride up the steps, or a stroll through the halls . . .

. . . but rather that: the attackers had intended to obstruct justice, through violence and unlawful disruption, by terminating the count of Electoral vote. The tallying of those Electoral votes was a duty of Congress that had been planned in the founding documents of our democratic republic, Constitutionally mandated - to be conducted by the Vice President of the United States. Mike Pence did his job that day. JD Vance, read 'em and vpleep. But I digress. So I learned my lesson yesterday evening: For a peaceful thanksgiving with extended family, don't talk politics. But I do harken back to the bountiful heritage of Thanksgiving: we can still be thankful for our United States of America, even if is, in 2025, being transformed into a banana-maga republic. I do like bananas, with a little peanut butter. Reminds me of that good ole boy peanut farmer from Georgia, Jimmy Carter. Where's Jimmy when we need him? But I know where Jimmy is now, because he was, as I am, born again. I am glad that this life on earth is not the whole deal. We who are born again have far more beautiful and righteous home awaiting us in the heavenly realms. I am Thankful for that! Thank God for eternal life, proven historically by the man from Galilee who was executed on a cross and then, three days later, lived to tell about it. King of Soul