Where Are the Families of Our Senators & Leaders?
I am always shocked by those on the Hill who say “Republicans” when what they really mean is MAGA. We must start to differentiate between the two. Murphy and Cruz are not Republicans.
Those MAGA people who have been elected to the seats they hold in Washington. I’m shocked by how they respond to things that we all know are outrageous. I still ponder how they say what they say as if it made any sense.
The latest example is the senator from North Carolina, Thom Tillis. In response to Donald Trump’s unprecedented, outrageous, illegal statement about taking over Gaza— as if it were just a spot opening up at a poker table—he replied, “Well, there are a couple of kinks in that slinky.”
A couple of kinks in that slinky?
A United States senator—one of 100 in all the world? Kinks in a slinky?
I have no words. Clearly, he doesn’t either.
So, I continue to marvel at the way these people—elected to what is considered one of the most powerful, coveted, and respected positions in the world—are unwilling to use their words to express what everybody knows must be their honest point of view.
Let me use my words: What the fuck are you people afraid of? He has no power without you. Why are you giving up what you know to be the difference between right and wrong just to look like fools, to walk away from your responsibility to the world? To do so much damage? I know. I know. Power. Greed. Their jobs. Their persona.
And so, my mind goes to their families. What do they think of the way their parent is behaving?
I think back to my father, who ruled the roost with audacious brutality toward any point of view outside his own. And, one of the men in my life who actually said once, “Anything short of total adoration is unacceptable.”
When I was a child, I don’t think I stood up to my father. Nor did my friends stand up to theirs. But I’ve heard stories from men over the years who, on occasion, would stand up to an abusive father—always the father, by the way—and say something like, “If you ever touch me again, I will kill you.” They said it without agency. They were pushed to the limit.
But these senators have agency. If they stand up and do it all together, he loses all his power.
And, they have families. They go home to dinner. And I can’t help but wonder—do their wives, their daughters, their sons, their grandchildren ever look at them across the table and say, “Who are you?”
I want to ask the families of these so-called leaders—do you talk about it at home? Is it the elephant in the room? Is there anger? Shame? A deep, hollow sadness?
I think about Caroline Kennedy’s incredible statement about her cousin Robert F. Kennedy Jr.: “He is a predator.”
Not, “There are a couple of kinks in that slinky.”
I have it on good authority that Ms. Kennedy did not want to make that statement. She has spent a lifetime, like her mother, walking the fine line of being respectable and serving her country—without challenging it. That was never her role. It was her son who told her she had to stand up at this moment in time. Because the damage was too great if she didn’t. Because lives would be lost if she didn’t.
And so, she did.
So I guess my question—although I’m not sure how I would want to ask it—is: Where are the families behind these men and women who have walked away from their duty and their core values out of fear, greed, or power-mongering?
And when will they stand up?
Or will they ever?
Or perhaps the worst question of all: Do they agree?
Is there something that allows them to look away from the truth and embrace what will destroy so much of what is good in the world?
I watch George W. Bush’s daughter, Jenna, on morning television in videos on social media. She seems lovely. Her father, now seemingly harmless with his paintbrushes and pretty landscapes, is a felon. He truly is. He surrounded himself with very bad men. Dick Cheney was one of them—although I admire some things Liz Cheney has done, she too is not on the list of great Americans who believed in justice for all before her stand on January 6th.
But Jenna presents her father, the felon, as this kind, harmless man with a gentle sense of humor. She presents him with so much adoration. And at the same time, she presents herself as a devout Christian, and a good human. I find it confusing.
Does she really not know what her father did in his tenure in the White House? Does she conveniently forget?
I can’t help but wonder—did the Bush daughters ever stand up to their father during that very horrible time, during the invasion, during the many, many deaths they knew were based on a lie?
They say one of the great things about America is that you can start fresh. You can have a comeback. A second chance. I think President Bush got that through his post presidency friendship in front of the cameras with Michelle Obama. Through the anecdotes of his adoring, admired daughter on a daily basis to the country. He is not held accountable for what he actually did as President.
But in the future. Walking away from your past actions and recreate a different persona moving forward? I’m afraid that ship is sailing. This moment in history and the behavior of these humans is too egregious to have that option.
We have now stooped so low that there is no coming back for these people. Which brings me back to the original thought behind this missive.
What are your families saying to you at home and in private? In the bedroom? In the car?
Maybe someone—a better writer than me—should write a one-act play about what could be said in these private moments. Take all my anger and rage and deep hurt and put it on the stage.
I will be front row, center.
Beyond sad.