Sam Smith - One of the things that frustrates me every day, as I go through hundreds of news stories looking for some to cite in our blog, is the lack of tales about positive things going on out there. This is not a new experience. When I started a Capitol Hill neighborhood newspaper in the early 1960s I felt the same way. Where is the good news?
But then I remember how I enjoyed living in DC despite the things like the 1968 riots or the fact that my city had the highest crime rate in the country.
I came to believe that there were two 'hoods - an evil and damaging one I had to report and fight and one that was improving thanks to community action . Someone's house could be broken into several blocks away and it was disturbing but still didn't define the 'hood.
Which is one reason I think we can outlast the Trump experience. We can't just list his evils but must find ways to improve our nation as a whole. This isn't to say that….
[I had to stop writing this here because of a phone call about a plan to broadcast on PBS stations countrywide this spring a film from several years ago about DC self government efforts of which my wife and I were a part - a good example of how the local can take time away from the national]
This isn't to say that what Trump is up to hasn't been horrible but rather that even at his worse he doesn't get to define America unless we fall for him.
It's still our America and while we have to keep reporting the latest evils of the Trump regime, it is also crucial that we view them as illustrating the need to be as strong as we were, say, during the end of slavery or the New Deal. The Trump evils are only part of the story. The right response is not just fear or surrender but strengthening the democratic and decent elements of our lives while getting the thugs taken away. It's still our America.
