By now, those who are determined to see the Democratic ticket through to triumph in November and who also viewed the June 27th debate have, whether openly or covertly, recorded their reaction.
What troubles me most is why many of these won’t acknowledge that which their actual contemporaries in the political fight already have, and that very publicly: their emperor is, quite possibly, naked.
The real question, in my mind, is: why not?
Why do humans, in the face of what can only be termed the glaringly obvious, turn away?
Is the reason similar to why many straight people shudder when they are confronted with accepting the sexual orientation of those whose chromosome cocktail is dissimilar to their own?
Or, is it really about something as basic as the need for stability?
Babies are born apparently helpless. They cannot hold up their own heads, an inability which – under certain conditions – could kill them. Beginning with the base of their necks infants need to be stabilized, and that by way of a supporting adult’s careful embrace.
Developing further, young children require an environment which cocoons them within clear parameters defined by safety and security.
Once established within such clarified conditions, the child reaches adulthood allegedly intact, on every level – physiological; mental; psychological. The human is considered: stable.
However……if one begins life without the necessary support, even to endure its absence into puberty, destabilization becomes the norm. Does this lead to profound disturbance?
Or, what of those to whom stability is pressed upon them, enforced as a value, made a requisite for every intended act within society? To what end do such become DEPENDENT upon feeling stable in order to, in turn, feel whole?
The converse would be a freely permissive scenario, few boundaries, the absence of any rule. Do these grow to become dependent upon the absence of structure in order to feel stable?
Finally: does stability factor, at all?
My mother gave birth, three times. Her firstborn was raised by several adults, at once – herself; her parents; her sister, all within the same household. I was her second born, the first child of her reunion with the same husband who had sired the elder child. By then, a newly independent household had formed – a home built; a new, distinct familial unit, with two parents for the children.
But being head of her own, independent family, my mother felt… unsure. Her own stability had been both created and produced by both her parents, who worked out of the home providing multiple services for hire. Now, with a husband who went to work every day in his own shop, she was alone in her own house – with a precocious 10 year old, who freely came and went, and a babe in arms. Could she do this, all by herself?
I remember the red, plastic rectangular bars surrounding me on four sides, and the sticky vinyl cushion beneath my bare thighs. This was a playpen, and it limited both my world and my reach. I learned, from infancy, that there was the space wherein I was permitted to to move and the infinite space outside of it from which I was prevented access.
To what end was this limited range of reach capable of confining my perceptions within clear parameters? Would I learn that reality depended upon such specifically outlined limits ?
I don’t know what will happen within the Democratic Party of the United States. I only know what I am capable of perceiving, at this moment. I must carry out my intellectual and social responsibilities within my capacity to do so, as a free citizen — heels, dug in.
What President Biden is capable of perceiving, and then defining, as his own multi-faceted responsibility toward the American people remains to be seen.
The fact that we as a people can no longer be sure about any of this is, in a word, destabilizing.
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Copyright 6/30/24 Ruth Ann Scanzillo. All rights those of the author, whose name appears above this line. Thank you for being the better person.
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—- Ruth Ann Scanzillo 6/30/24.
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