AN HISTORIC MOMENT
Two earthshaking events should get our attention now. In one, a Deep South state has chosen an African American and a Jewish American at the same time as its new U.S. Senators (some news outlets have declared one the winner and the other is ahead and almost certainly the winner). One has to be a southerner of my age range (over 70) to fully appreciate the significance of this monumental event even though Warnock is not the first black man elected to the U.S. Senate from the south. If someone had told me as a child that a black man and a Jewish man would be elected by a majority of the people in a southern state over two white conservatives, I would have laughed at the absurdity of the thought. Unimaginable in the Jim Crow south of my youth. No more. It has actually happened. This is a colossal accomplishment for American democracy. I cannot emphasize this enough.
The other enormous event of the day is that the U.S. Congress is set to certify the election of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as President and Vice-President today (or tomorrow). This will happen over the shocking attempt of Republicans to overthrow the clear-cut legal and legitimate democratic election. President Trump and a band of his anti-democratic followers are trying to overthrow our constitutional democratic republic in favor of minority rule. The anti-democratic agitators will make an ugly show today but in the end cannot stop this monumental event of American history.
I for one am taking a pause to say a prayer of thanksgiving and for protection of our democratic nation-state. Too, I am celebrating an enormous victory for human rights. In time, we can analyze all of the historical aspects of these two huge historical happenings in this great moment in time.
The great democratic revolution of the Twentieth and early Twenty-First Centuries has just won a tremendous victory over the forces of reaction and counter-revolution. And, it was my fellow southerners who played a key role in making this happen. I could not be more proud of my region of America today.
