This Just In — The end-of-year countdown has begun, thankfully.
It’s been a doozy, this ten years squeezed into one. The commencement of a presidential administration that we know is going to be a long, difficult slog is one thing, but the threat to so many of our friends and neighbors is another.
I’ve recently listened to Rachel Maddow’s recent podcast, “Burn Order.” I recommend it most enthusiastically. No spoiler here, but Maddow tells the story of how the American government, led by a handful of xenophobic, racist people, rounded up and unlawfully incarcerated Japanese Americans in the wake of the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941.
We all know that this wrong, terrible thing happened. What is not well known is that the government’s own records revealed that the Federal government did research into whether or not Japanese Americans (including CHILDREN) were a national security threat due to loyalty to the emperor of Japan.
That research, Maddow reports, was incisive and conclusive. It objectively proved that the opposite was true— that Japanese Americans were patriotic and brave in defense of the United States. The U.S. government knew this and rounded them up and incarcerated them anyway, then ordered those research records burned.
Someone, however, failed to execute that order. The records of that research and the burn order itself were instead secured like Indiana Jones’s Lost Ark: they were misfiled (I hope deliberately) in the National Archives.
Brilliant.
Discovered decades later by an amateur archives enthusiast, they revealed the conspiracy that resulted in apologies and reparations. They put the lie to a handful of still-living, still-lying, still denying administration officials who had apparently convinced themselves that being forced into concentration camps using horse stalls was “not so bad” and that those held at gunpoint could leave whenever they wished.
This shameful episode in American history is stunning for its current relevance. Breathtaking. We are in a time when the president has illegally taken a literal wrecking ball to a wing of the White House. His grotesque public statements about two unspeakably tragic murders this week and that of his conservative supporter earlier this year make his narcissistic disease even more obvious.
When high profile murder happens, it’s about him.
As I prepare for my family’s holidays and the new year, the president’s obvious desperation and plummeting polling gives me hope. In the main, I am optimistic for 2026 because I have seen something this year that I didn’t dare dream could be possible — a level of resistance among ordinary folks that makes all the sense in the world and cannot be bought.
The “No Kings” movement and its well-organized, organic structure will continue growing and next year it will drive the anti-Trump train right into a boffo mid-term election. Many Republicans are now openly pushing back and anticipating that the Democrats will take the House and, at a minimum, Trump will be impeached.
That’s the quiet part that they’re saying out loud, some on their way out the door. My sympathy for their distress is non-existent. We need great big changes and we need them right away.
Every member of Congress should take a lesson from the Reiner family tragedy and be reflecting over this holiday season —asking, “How do we prevent this demented, damaged person from doing more harm? What would it take to remove this president? What crime must he commit? What property must he destroy or deface? What must he do before we impeach and remove him?”
Intervention is needed. They’re obligated to provide it and we’re obligated to support those members of Congress who are trying to do the right thing. (I’m looking at you, Thom Tillis)
Keep protesting. Keep learning how to help the immigrants who help make us a great nation. Keep caring. We’ll get through this dark time. The days start getting longer on Sunday. Hang on. A Happier New Year is coming.
Jean Bolduc is a freelance writer and the host of the Weekend Watercooler on 97.9 The Hill. She is the author of “African Americans of Durham & Orange Counties: An Oral History” (History Press, 2016) and has served on Orange County’s Human Relations Commission, The Alliance of AIDS Services-Carolina, the Orange County Housing Authority Board of Commissioners, and the Orange County Schools’ Equity Task Force. She was a featured columnist and reporter for the Chapel Hill Herald and the News & Observer.
Readers can reach Jean via email – jean@penandinc.com and via Twitter @JeanBolduc
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