I’ve travelled along the coast on Lynn Shore Drive for more than fifty years. I’ve seen those coastal waters, sometimes raging and magnificent, sometimes calm, blue, and beautiful. Even in the dark of night, or in fog and haze, we all know the sea is there.
Many years ago a long, curved wall was built there that, when struck by the rising tide, turns back the ocean waves approaching from the sea. As those waves turn back they encounter other, relentless waves still coming toward that wall, creating roiling, wet, uncontrollable chaos. The sands below the wall are called King’s Beach, across which outflows of water from the street — and sometimes sewage from Lynn and Swampscott — flow, seeping or sweeping across the beach, a source of sour smells offensive to anyone nearby. At last, we are acting to improve that situation. It is within our power to do so.
Is there a metaphor here for the political situation we face today? I think so.
On Saturday morning thousands will gather at King’s Beach for “No Kings Day.”
This is not a partisan event. This is an “American” protest.
When I was a young man, I turned out for protests aimed at the Vietnam War. It was LBJ that got us deeply involved in that war and it was Richard Nixon that kept it going, unnecessarily… at the cost of some 55,000 American lives and multiples more of Asian lives. The war was advanced by two Presidential administrations, one Democratic, one Republican. Opposition to it came from across the board. That is where we are today.
At this very moment we are once again being dragged into an armed conflict far from home. Let us remember that in 2015 a deal was made among Iran, China, France, Germany, Russia, Britain, the European Union, and the United States. It was called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Iran’s refinement of nuclear fuel would be closely controlled and monitored, not by “boots on the ground” but by the sandals and shoes of monitors all over Iran. And, most importantly, all parties would be engaged and talking with one another. Day by day the possibilities of progress would be explored through diplomacy and negotiation. The JCPOA would reflect the kind of progress those who had suffered through two World Wars 70 years before had wished to see. War would be avoided. It might even create the conditions for the Iranian people to dislodge the cruel and corrupt Mullahs who had seized power in 1979. Intense dissatisfaction with and resistance to the Mullahs had been growing and the possibility of another revolution, by Iranians themselves, seemed very possible. In 1952 Cold War fears on the part of the US and Britain resulted in their overthrowing a democratically elected government and the imposition of a dictatorship led by the Shah. The hope in 2015 had been to create room for peaceful progress on all fronts.
Ah…but Trump had not made that deal. He therefore threw it out. Not only that. The fact that the deal was made by President Obama after years of diplomacy, made it even more unacceptable. If it was Obama who had kept the peace, Trump needed to walk away.
A month ago, Trump’s war was begun on a whim. Trump reports that he “had a feeling” that Iran was going to attack the United States, so he joined up with Netanyahu and a war began.
The lessons learned from the cruelty of war should be powerful and lasting. But too often they are not. While cruelty and war come to the surface from the murky depths of our human souls, they can be limited if good people use the power available to them to organize and act.
On Saturday we will use the tools our Constitutional gives us. We will freely assemble to protest Trump’s actions and his continuing desire to rip our democratic republic apart.
“Only I can fix it,” he announced. “Only I can kill it” is what we heard.
“No Kings” is what he will hear on Saturday. Will he listen?
There is a powerful storm gathering in our country. There is no miraculous being who will calm it. It’s up to us. We are citizens who have the misfortune of someone in power who, like Xerxes, the Persian King, might send Pete Hegseth, his soldiers armed with chains and branding irons, to lash and punish that sea of resistance as was done 2,500 years ago. Could it happen again? Whims and whips to often go together.
My hope is that the long curved wall of American political tradition will turn back the violent waves that have been set against us since Trump announced his authoritarian rule. “I alone can wreck that wall” he announced…or something like it.
I think Trump is wrong…as do those who will arrive at No Kings Beach on Saturday.
