Now arrives the hour of action…

Last updated on: January 20, 2017 at 6:51 pm by Aziz Poonawalla

Now arrives the hour of action… 2017-01-20T18:51:12-07:00 Aziz Poonawalla

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…and the time for empty talk is over.

That is a direct line from President Trump’s inaugural address (here, deconstructed and compared to all previous such).

The line echoes his criticism against civil rights hero John Lewis – but now will be turned against Trump himself. Will Trump govern as he campaigned? His address to the nation as President had only brief nods to inclusion.

The greatest President who ever served said in his Address,

We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

I will distinguish between Trump and the office of the President. I will also distinguish between Trump’s ferocious supporters and those who voted for him. Perhaps affection is too strong a word at the moment, for the wounds are too raw, and Trump has not made even the slightest effort yet, on day one, to heal them. But we must not be enemies.

That said, I will not hide, either. If the election was a great recrimination against the majority, then those of us in the majority who supported Hillary have gone above and beyond in seeking to understand. The liberal introspection ends today, however. There isn’t an election at stake, but a country, and lives, and policy, and values. We are the majority and we should not allow Trumpism to pretend otherwise.

It is time for us to stand up and speak out too. If we can persuade Trump’s base the rightness of our values, then that will be best. If not, we need to fight for what we believe without them. And we must not be enemies. But neither must we hold our values any less important than theirs.

Now arrives the hour of action. and the time for empty talk is over.

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