West River Eagle

From the Editorial Board



Political parties

Last week we talked about the kickoff of the 2023 political season. There are those among our readership who have a passion for following politics as they unfold, saying it’s “watching history in the making.”

History was certainly made in the House of Representatives last week when the election of a Speaker of the House went to a record fifteen ballots. Kevin McCarthy of California was finally elected after four days and 14 failed ballots.

The ongoing shenanigans captured audiences here and around the world as the Republicans failed again and again to come together to ensure a smooth transition of power. How they will be able to even begin the work of governance in this new session is up for question.

In some ways, the two-party system is to blame for the gridlock. Since the United States operates with two main parties, smaller groups of legislators with similar agendas are forced into the two big tents. If the parties were able to branch out, Congress as a whole might be forced to learn to work together better.

The Pew Research Center’s Political Typology project suggests there might be more than a dozen potential smaller parties at work inside the two big ones. Some pundits posit as many as 80 or more.

Learn more and take the quiz to see where you fit here: www.pewresearch.org/topic/politics-policy/political-parties-polarization/political-typology/.

Martin Luther King Day

Monday, January 16 is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, which was signed into law by President Reagan in 1983.

While most of us feel like MLK Day has always been celebrated on the third Monday in January (King’s birthday is January 15.) the holiday was not actually celebrated in all 50 states until 2000.

King was prescient in his understanding of how oppression of one group impacts another.

In his 1963 book, “Why We Can’t Wait,” he wrote, “Our nation was born in genocide when it embraced the doctrine that the original American, the Indian, was an inferior race. Even before there were large numbers of Negroes on our shores, the scar of racial hatred had already disfigured colonial society.

“From the sixteenth century forward, blood flowed in battles of racial supremacy. We are perhaps the only nation which tried as a matter of national policy to wipe out its Indigenous population. Moreover, we elevated that tragic experience into a noble crusade. Indeed, even today we have not permitted ourselves to reject or feel remorse for this shameful episode. Our literature, our films, our drama, our folklore all exalt it.”

This Martin Luther King Day we offer the following insistence from author and artist Lilla Watson, “If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.”

Be safe. Be kind. Be grateful.

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