Funerals like Elijah Cummings\’ Should Motivate Us to Act Or We Will End Up Mourning Even Greater Losses

The McCain funeral, the Bush funeral, the Cummings funeral, they have all become national events, elevated by their focus on decency and values that our current leadership violates and ignore. By pausing to think of goodness, we somehow send a message of protest and solidarity.

It\’s a recognition that we are embroiled in a contest not just for political victory of one party over another in Washington, but for the soul of our country. It sounds too simplistic or dramatic perhaps to say so, to say we are engaged in a battle between good and evil.

But that\’s just what this is. On one side you have the corrupt, be they an unfit, narcissistic, serially criminal president and those who enable and defend him or whether among those on that side, they are henchmen and dupes, racists and thieves, or they are those who affect piety, claim religiosity while displaying no understanding of the principles or aspirations to perfect ourselves that underpins every faith. They are the heirs to the money-changers in the Temple and the dictators and thugs of history.

They threaten us like every enemy that our nation has ever faced, but they threaten us from within, without regard for truth, with the support of the worst among us, with contempt for our institutions, our laws and the values on which we were founded.

As a result, they are among the greatest threats we have ever faced. And candidly, we must acknowledge their defeat is by no means a certainty. They control not only the highest office in our land but our system of justice and others among the primary checks against abuse of power that those who established this country put in place. They are employing the proven tactics of autocrats and tyrants and they have maintained a base of support sufficient to keep them in power despite their manifold depredations.

And on the other side, there is just all the rest of us. We are in the majority but many of us feel impotent, though we have the power to win at the ballot box and in the street and in the court of public opinion. We are many, but we are divided as to the urgency of the threat.

We are on the side of what is right and what has historically prevailed in our society, but that makes some complacent and causes many to lose the sense of urgency we must have. We can defeat these enemies among us if we mobilize against them.

If we encourage the leaders who share our view to be bold and to demand accountability. If we support with our money and our efforts candidates who can defeat elected representatives who are the side of those who would destroy America.

If we run ourselves, speak out ourselves, mobilize our friends and our families, take to the streets when we can, harness every form of pressure available to us, make it clear that those who continue to threaten our institutions will be not only defeated but that we will not rest until all of their abuses and crimes are made public and everyone who played a role in them has paid whatever price the law demands for those assaults on our society.

When good women and men have stood up in these funeral services and we have paused to consider where we are, how we have stumbled and how we can lift ourselves up again, they often speak of faith and prayer. And there is certainly a place for that.

But they also speak of action and courage, as they did today in citing the examples of Elijah and Isaiah. And given how serious the threats we face are, and they are very serious indeed, our government is as corrupt as it has ever been, our president the worst of all presidents, his aids seeking to crush core democratic concepts like that no man is above the law, we must recognize that now is a time for action. We may gain insight and energy from gathering in reflection. But now is a time for action. This is the defining challenge of our generation.

Rising to meet this challenge is no less important to the future of America than was rising to meet the challenges of World War I or II, the Civil War, of seeking to defeat racism and sexism and historical prejudice of every sort. This is our moment.

Let\’s not simply mourn the passing of good and decent leaders. Let\’s not fall into the trap of mourning the passing of goodness and honor. Let\’s rise up from these experiences and focus in that which each of us can do and not rest until we have succeeded and lived up to the best characteristics of those we have lost in order that we do not lose what we cannot live without.