The State of the Union is

When Patti started the Atkins diet (all meat) at the same time I was becoming a vegetarian, I should have known marital trouble was on the horizon.

A union of two people in marriage is supposed to evolve, mature, and endure. You build memories together, you laugh together, you cry together, in sickness and in health, richer or poorer, and so on. Our separation and, subsequently, divorce was painful and heartbreaking. And her attorney was ferocious and mine might have been related to Merrick Garland.

If a relationship is supposed to provide a safe harbor from life’s uncertainty, challenges, and storms, a place where you can rest, recover, and pursue your respective dreams with each sunrise: What do you do when you recognize you have irreconcilable differences? And what do you do when this impasse is on a societal scale?

“This is essentially a People’s contest. On the side of the Union, it is a struggle for maintaining in the world, that form, and substance of government, whose leading object is, to elevate the condition of men — to lift artificial weights from all shoulders — to clear the paths of laudable pursuit for all — to afford all, an unfettered start, and a fair chance, in the race of life.” ― Abraham Lincoln

One vision for society is built upon justice, democracy, and equality. A place where all people can live free in peaceful security, be afforded the opportunity for a better life for themselves and family, and, have access to clean air, safe drinking water, a great education system, job opportunities, equal justice protections, healthcare, and decent food (but no kale and the occasional apple fritter).

A society that is educated, informed, and engaged from their local community level to regional, national, and global interests. A place where we value our elders. A society that embraces facts, evidence, and science (regardless of how difficult facts might be and whose feelings they hurt).

From the last vote count in 2024, according to The Cook Political Report, there are about 75,017,625 other voting systems that maintain a similar view. It is important to note that 75 million people would form the 20th most populated country in the world (Germany is 19th).

“The truth unquestionably is, that the only path to a subversion of the republican system of the Country is, by flattering the prejudices of the people, and exciting their jealousies and apprehensions, to throw affairs into confusion, and bring on civil commotion.”
-Alexander Hamilton

While we refer to the country as the “United States of America”, one could argue that we are certainly not “united” and have only been united briefly during World Wars or natural disasters. And whereas we’ve had common interests in the past, such as when people opened their homes to the victims and survivors after devastating hurricanes like “Katrina” that is no longer the case.

Now disaster relief is all about blame and pre-conditions such as House Speaker Rep. Mike “Lil” Johnson conditioning disaster relief for those impacted by the horrific fires in Los Angeles to raising the debt ceiling to pass more tax breaks for billionaires.

• https://www.axios.com/2025/01/14/california-wildfires-mike-johnson-debt-ceiling
• https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/11/warren-davidson-republican-disaster-relief-california-wildfires
• https://www.forbes.com/sites/conormurray/2025/01/09/elon-musk-and-more-right-wing-critics-blame-diversity-equity-and-inclusion-for-la-wildfires-with-little-evidence
• https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-blames-biden-california-gov-gavin-newsom-deadly-wildfires-rcna186859

For generations, many have had hope that we will evolve toward a “more perfect Union”. Public education, colleges and universities, libraries, scientific research, and exploration all once held promise to bring a significant part of the population along toward realizing our potential, overcoming the darkness of hate, fear, and willful ignorance; and being a beacon of democracy for the rest of the world. A glimpse of what is possible through self-governance. No Kings. No tyrants. No oligarchs.

We are not evolving. Instead, the nation is deeply divided. One-third of the nation embraces the concepts of justice, democracy, and equality. Now, slightly more than one-third reject those concepts and instead welcome tyranny, inequality, and injustice. And the last third of the nation couldn’t care less whether it is tyranny or democracy.

There are clear and present dangers that must be addressed, and others that are imminent threats. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke of “The Fierce Urgency of Now” over sixty years ago.

As a nation we continue to be impeded by the insatiable greed of billionaires, elected officials for sale up to and including a criminal-elect President who offered Big Oil “favors” in exchange for $1 billion in bribes “donations”1, unethical partisan, corrupt, and incompetent judges subverting justice, a legacy media focused only on profit instead of its responsibility to democracy, the willfully ignorant, the apathetic, religious extremists, and still others who thrive on hate, fear, and conspiracy theories.

“There are thousands who are in opinion opposed to slavery and to the war, who yet in effect do nothing to put an end to them; who, esteeming themselves children of Washington and Franklin, sit down with their hands in their pockets, and say that they know not what to do, and do nothing....” ― Henry David Thoreau

There are twelve states who have voted straight Republican tickets since the Reagan administration in 1980. Alabama, Idaho, Kansas, North Dakota, South Dakota (why are there two Dakotas, each with populations smaller than many cities in the United States?), Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, Mississippi, Nebraska, and Wyoming.

“America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.” ― Abraham Lincoln

Alaska, Indiana, Kentucky, Montana (11 of 12 Presidential elections), Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina (10 of 12), Florida, Louisiana, Missouri, and Tennessee (9 of 12).

What is your vision for the future of the United States? Do you stop and think about what the promise of the American Dream once held for us all, or do you simply put on a red hat and vote for “your team” because an Australian running Fox “News” tells you that Democrats are Marxists? Or because a South African born into mining wealth tells you your kids are going to return from a school field trip with a gender reassignment. Or because a pretend hillbilly venture capitalist tells you that refugees are eating your pets.

Because your voting pattern has chartered a path to a United States controlled by a handful of wealth-concentrated billionaires like Musk, Mellon, Bezos, Thiel, Seid, Koch, DeVos, Waltons, and Adelson. An American vision that includes measles, polio, and other serious disease outbreaks, assault rifle and ammunition vending machines at the mall, heavily armed teachers at a few remaining overcrowded and dilapidated public schools, religious private schools likely afforded by a new trough of student loan debt for K-12, the elimination of food safety inspections, environmental protections, eviscerating access to healthcare, embracing one “official” religion, and the banning and burning of books. A vision that includes deporting everyone who doesn’t look like you. A vision of a Federal government that is so small it can be drowned in a bathtub, yet large enough to dictate detailed rules about women’s bodies and bathroom usage.

A different version of a United States that is not dystopian would be taking bold climate action, appointing competent non-partisan judges, building new public school classrooms and hiring more teachers, instituting laws around responsible gun ownership, provisioning healthcare for all (including vision, dental and mental well-being), universal Pre-K, strengthening Social Security and Medicare, and funding the transition to clean/safe/renewable energy, mass transit projects, public health preparedness, and major infrastructure projects.

This other version would be expanding voter rights and protections, implementing a Universal Basic Income (as part of a reimagining of the economy due to labor demand decline and displacement from AI), codifying reproductive rights, and LGBTQ+ rights, and passing sensible immigration laws and policies. And this alternative version would be funding healthcare, energy, education, and other major imperatives while balancing the budget through progressive and fair taxation without the loopholes that exist for those who have accumulated stockpiles of multigenerational wealth presently parked in massive portfolios, offshore tax havens, and directed toward subverting the political and economic system to plunder the present and betray the future in an attempt to satisfy insatiable greed.