PARTY UNITY

I'm scared, honestly. I have been comforting myself with the thought that "America is better than this," but now I'm no so sure. I woke in the middle of the night last night and couldn't get back to sleep for all the racing thoughts about the danger that we're in.

The proximate cause was not only Trump's revocation of former CIA Director John Brennan's security clearance, but also his threat against a number of other prominent names in our intelligence and national security community. It's beginning to feel like a palace coup--but one directed by a man who would be king against his own palace guard. It's insanity--and insanity is in imminent danger of becoming the norm. More worrisome still is the cowed silence of almost all Republican voices in the face of this insanity, and the tacit complicity of the Republican leadership.

I have been purposefully, self-protectively skeptical about the "blue wave" that many predict for this November--including those of us who were equally confident of Hillary Clinton's election and the decisive defeat of Donald Trump. But there are many slips between cup and and the lip of election victory this year, and in 2020. There's the history of gerrymandering; long-orchestrated Republican superiority in local and state governments; continuing, too often successful efforts at voter suppression in Democratic-leaning communities and states; and, by no means least, outright election-tampering and cyberwarfare conducted against us with impunity by a foreign power.

Let's not kid ourselves: to defeat these odds is an uphill battle, friends. No laurels, until we've earned the right to wear them. No magic. No blue wave, until it actually thunders to the shore. Just constant vigilance and unfailing cooperation--even when that might involve the sacrifice of our own sacred cows. Now is not the time for petty egos or self-defeating ideological differences. We can take at least this one lesson from Republicans: it's party unity that guarantees success at the polls.

It is at our ultimate cost that we elevate diversity to a dominant guiding principle. Unity, above diversity, that's the ticket.