In the wake of the Supreme Court’s recent chilling hearing on the right to an abortion and the unrelenting assault on voting rights in broad daylight, shouldn’t Congress and the White House hear the pitter patter of little (or big) feet, not on Xmas Day, but in early January in Washington?  Power, Frederick Douglass told us long ago, concedes nothing without a struggle.

The failure of the coalition and its progressive bloc that elected Biden to sustain its level of energy and activity post election looms large in present circumstances. A lot of their criticism of Biden, I would argue, is misplaced. They would be better served thinking through their own concrete role (or lack thereof) in the context of a narrow Congressional majority and an opposition party that is at once a wrecking ball of democracy and democratic governance, an unashamed exploiter of a disruptive, deadly, and seemingly unending pandemic, and a cynical master of the politics of grievance, especially racialized grievance.

Bellyaching about the Biden administration and Congressional Democrats can leave one feeling self satisfied, but also tone deaf to what is the overarching task of this moment, that is, acquainting the electorate with the constraints – political and otherwise – as well as the possibilities and then finding ways to draw that same electorate into the political process as active agents.

As I do on holidays made an early am pilgrimage to local watering hole. Always wish my father could join me. He drank much too much, but still would have liked his company.