Reflections

Every morning for the past couple of weeks, I’ve been awakened by a cardinal attacking the window in my bedroom. When I scare him off, he goes to another window. Every day, all day, he attacks his reflection. It’s endless.

I Googled it. Apparently, cardinals are very territorial.  He has a nest somewhere in my yard and the poor guy is defending it from himself. And, in his little brain, there are threats everywhere, on all sides of the house. I worry he going to collapse from exhaustion before his babies are hatched. 

That cardinal reminds me of Republicans. For years, when they looked into the window of our country, the reflection they saw looked like them, white, straight, Christian and mostly male–the newscasters, sitcom stars, college professors, university presidents, religious leaders, political leaders. And they were comforted. 

 One day, they looked into the window and the reflection they saw didn’t fit their expectations. Instead, they saw threats—brown people, immigrants, gay people, Muslims. And, like that cardinal, they now see threats everywhere—on television, in the pulpit, in the classroom, even in the White House.    

In fear driven rage, they started attacking the government and our democracy. They abused the rules in the legislative branch to prevent legislation. They change the rules of the Senate to pack the courts. They rig the democracy to make voting harder and ensure electoral outcomes. They attack our Capitol in an attempt to nullify the presidential election. They attack theories and ideas that they fear will expose their flaws and their sins. 

But what they are really attacking is the idea of America itself and what they see is a reflection that scares them, not because it looks so different, but because it looks just like the country in which they now live. Like that cardinal, they are trying protect the country from itself and from imaginary threats. And like that cardinal, they are just wasting their time while real threats loom, waiting to take advantage of their silly distractions.