Local opinion: Raising our voices for something, not against everything

I have been keeping abreast of the challenges to the Trump administration. All actions have taken the shape of protesting against the administration.

Given that a protest's primary function is to raise awareness of a problem, then promote the solution. “F” Trump does neither. Which was the only chant of note at a most recent protest. It hurts even more when you realize that Trump isn’t even the biggest problem. The Supreme Court is.

While everyone is focused on Trump, the Supreme Court is making it harder to vote, especially for minority votes to have meaning. No one is offering solutions to take to mitigate the Supreme Court. No one wants to read the Constitution enough to realize that we don’t have a Supreme Court. We have people in black robes advocating for white nationalism and Christian dogma. How is it that 14 Supreme Court justices could not find fault in the Voting Rights Act or legalized abortion for over 50 years, but 6 MAGA judges can magically destroy both?

We have left the Obama administration to oppose the hate and divisiveness of the Trump administration; to the confusion of the Biden administration; full circle back to the hate and divisiveness of Trump. All this anger. All those complaints. And yet we are back where we started.

I am hoping that some activities are being focused specifically on what we want to accomplish moving forward. What are we fighting for, not what are we fighting against. Who we are fighting for, not who we don’t like. The current environment is involved with anger and hate. I sincerely believe that fear begets anger; anger begets hate; hate begets war; and war begets death. Love is the true counter to that. But love asks, what are we fighting for? Who are we fighting for? The message when we protest should be clearly stated as to what we are fighting for. I propose the following as focal points of protests.

First, there is the Voting Rights Act. In this case, the John Lewis Voting Rights Bill.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 cannot be enforced because Section 5 is inoperable. But section 5 is inoperable because the formula in section 4(b) was based on information considered by the conservative majority of the Supreme Court as no longer responsive to current conditions. The formula has not been corrected or updated by Congress. This needs to be achieved with a Voting Rights Act of 2028 or the John Lewis Bill to pass.

Next would be women’s rights.

Granted, the Constitution does not specifically point to abortion as a constitutional right. But it does not deny it as a privilege either. The Court today wants to create a system of laws that complies with the pseudo-Christian faith that is currently being practiced. This is actively contrary to the First Amendment.

With a president who has been convicted of rape and a Supreme Court justice who has been accused of rape, where do you think women’s rights are really headed?

Third would be education.

Charter schools are not proposed to advance education for all children. It is designed to create greater segregation that would allow certain groups of children better education than others. If our funding were pooled into one major source for creating an effective learning environment for all, then all of America's children would benefit. And our teachers would be placed within the financial rewards window of most other professionals.

All of these (and more) could be accomplished if we focused our protest and our daily activities on the poor, the young, and women. We could drive this country into the direction that most of us desire. We need to get the messages out continually and over and over, repetitively so that all of us can understand the importance of creating the America for All that we really need as our goal.

We hear about Trump repeatedly. That reinforces Trump, which is bad. But worst, it gives validity and strength to the MAGA movement, which is intent on destroying the Constitution as it was intended to be. For all Americans. Not just white Americans.