This has been bubbling in my head for a while, and with Sean Connery’s death last week, it’s brought to mind again.

By the end of this week, we’ll either be a smoldering husk of democracy or a fasting ball of proto-fascism, driven by one political party. It is what it is.

This scene from The Untouchables kept popping into mind. Walk with me.

The past few years, we’ve seen laws broken to no consequence. The Hatch Act. Rules about campaign finance, and business interests. At every turn, one party shrugs, and the other yells (but not too loud, as to be civil) how wrong it is…and nothing happens.

Now, we’ve been warned as to to what can happen on Tuesday and afterwards. Voter disenfranchisement. Intimidation at the polls. Disinformation all over social media. A fifth estate interested in the “humanity” of people who wish others harm. A gotdamn pandemic.

And the question I’ve had through all of this, as I see a dearth of leadership from a lot of state offices and the White House, is “what are we prepared to do?”

Now, I have ideas of what we SHOULD do, but what are we prepared to do? We’d like an end to white supremacy, and end to police brutality, a need to hold certain people accountable for things that they do. But what are we prepared to do? How uncomfy can we be? With months of semi-lockdown, an increasing positivity rate, and people yearning for “normalcy”, what do we have in us to do? Four years of being bombarded by flouting of justice and rule of law ; how tired are we?

What ARE we prepared to do?