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We are in this together [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2025-04-27

We build our lives upon a legacy left by others. As children teachers, parents and pastors filled our heads with stories of the deeds and discoveries of men and women long dead. Socrates asked questions. Copernicus recentered our universe. Vikings raided. Jesus died and rose again. Buddha taught us the way. General George Washington fought the Revolution. Columbus “discovered” America, which was named after a guy who made maps.

The moon has been walked upon; our parents or grandparents knew the man on the moon.

We live in houses and buildings often times built by men and women long departed. No one remains alive who built St. Peter’s Basilica, the Empire State Building or the Tower of London. We ride on roads sometimes laid down by Romans or which were once filled with wagons headed west. Our hands every day touch artifacts invented by others. The fork. Chopsticks. Coins and currency. Toilet paper and a toothbrush. Trousers and bras. Hammers. Screwdrivers. Steering wheels.

We work at jobs either as old as humanity or as new as a baby. The old: Prostitute. Preacher. Teacher. The new: Astronaut. Influencer. Bird flu specialist. But all those jobs exist because others do. As we were taught the poet said: “No man is an island.” We are all Continentals.

But in every generation, there are those who consider themselves sui generis, self-made men, Ubermensch above all others and somehow not products of destiny but makers of it for others. They seize our common legacy and claim it theirs. These are not pioneers; they are robbers and illusionists. They seek to persuade us everything around us is ours, the future is now and there is no other. Animals have no rights. Nature no bounds or “real” value other than for our use and pleasure. God gave you the earth to use—or there is no God thus we are free to be our own deity, forge our own path, seize the day for ourselves.

These are predators of the past. Liars about legacy. Leaders to a dead end.

This is key: to recognize that those who claim they are self made men, that they are men above all others are ill. And yes, almost every one is a man. Most women somehow know they are part of a group, founders of families. Birthing and feeding a baby convinces them of their dependence on others to survive. But for these Ubermen? To follow them is to descend into sickness, a sickness unto death. Hitler, Mao and Stalin led to nothingness and ruin for millions. Trump is no different. Musk the same. These Pied Pipers threaten us and our children just like the story. Those who follow them tread into a dark forest filled with dangers and disappearance.

They drag us down, they drown us unless we resist—WE resist. We know these sick “self made men” have been tamed by unions, defeated by armies, stopped by juries. It takes us, together, realizing our common peril, banding together and appealing to others, to defeat the singular threat. We are here because we know we do not live alone and cannot survive alone. Those who appeal to our selfishness—the price of my egg, my gallon of gas, my race—do not want to lead us; they want to use us first to take from others, then to be taken from. “I alone can fix this” means I alone matter.

You do not.

This is the fundamental truth. Those who claim they are great are not. I am the state or I am the law or I am the leader (fuehrer) is the slogan of a deceiver. We are in this together; We shall fight on the beaches—We shall never surrender—these are slogans of solidarity, recognitions that no one stands alone. That we are all born in debt to others and survive because others cared for us.

And that means we must care for each other.

Don’t be dick—one of the rules of the road for this site—recognizes Democrats fight about what matters because it does matter. We care about where we are going because we know we are going there as a group, that we do share a common destiny. We want leaders who will listen to us and fight for us, but not think for us. We want to think for ourselves. But this is a battle, and in battle, we must work together to defeat the common enemy.

In the coming primaries we all will work for our chosen champions, for those we are convinced will fight for us and lead us to victory. But our personal choices will not always prevail over the decisions of others. President Biden made the mistake of too long believing only he could beat Trump. He felt singular, forgetting that he leads by contributing to the common effort.

We cannot let our singularity deceive us into turning on each other in this battle for the soul of our nation, and our own souls.

Indivisible we must be for in truth, indivisible we are. What happens to others also happens to us—our destiny is common like it or not. We all someday die. All of us. Every One. What matters in the long run is the legacy we leave others. Our forefathers and foremothers left us Americans a flawed democracy, restricted at first to only white men with property. Preceding generations changed this, sometimes at great cost, sometimes at the greatest personal cost. Our generation—not Boomers, not Gen X or Z—the people old and young alive now. We face our generation’s challenge to rescue our common heritage of freedom. We fight for it together or we lose it together.

Remember this in every comment, every dispute, every vote. If the majority of Democrats differ with your choice, remember we are in this together. I would love every candidate at every level to be more progressive. I will argue the case strongly. But, win or lose once Democrats together decide who will stand for office in our name I will support them to the hilt and work with others to persuade a majority in that district or state or the United States that we vote for the better choice, even if it is not the perfect choice.

We cannot stand outside the choice like so many did in the 2024 election, for we lost by so many not showing up because they did not like the choices at hand, so they thought they chose not to choose. Elections are happening now. Special elections. Primary elections for state and local elections this coming November. If all the Democrats who voted in 2024 had showed up again in the special elections in Florida we could have taken both seats from Republicans, and the atmosphere would be much different right now.

Democrats find it hard to work together. Republicans seem to flock and follow effortlessly. Democrats think for themselves but Republicans appear to want to have others think for them. They parrot the common line. We cannot agree what to say. But work together we must for we fall if we try to stand alone. Our differences, our identities, our pasts, our genders, our races, our hopes and our fears cannot be permitted to separate us for we share a common destiny, for good or ill.

I choose for good. And you?

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/4/27/2319073/-We-are-in-this-together?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web

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