I Need a Hero and It’s We the People

I need a hero
I am waiting for a hero until the end of the night

He has to be strong and he has to be fast

And he must be fresh from combat

I need a hero…

Bonnie Tyler’s The now classic pop song, “Holding Out for a Hero,” relates the oft-expressed longing for someone to come into our lives to care for us all, ease our loneliness, heal all the evil in the world, and make us feel safe and completely safe.

Tyler depicts these “larger-than-life” heroes “on fiery horses” as mighty gods and mortals “from the street side” like the great Hercules and the bright knights of old to rescue him from his plight.

But most of the time, no hero lives up to our expectations, and the ones we elevate to hero status eventually crack the pedestal we hold them up to. Then we are left with feelings of despair and personal betrayal. Our Savior could not save us. Our divinity was proved just like us as mortals after all.

So, is it possible that only mortals can act as heroes, mortals with human flaws and blemishes, whose strength and courage sometimes fail, who need support and encouragement from others, who are like us and really are we?

Unfortunately, no knight, no Hercules, no Joan of Arc or Wonder Woman, no god and no lottery ticket will swoop us in and lift us out of our malaise or out of our decaying democracy as it moves toward total fascist dictatorship.

And importantly, we cannot and should not put our trust primarily in Democratic Party members of Congress and state legislatures to protect our democracy today from the threat of the MAGA movement, or even Donald Trump to drop his overly dirty clothes. Either because of their lack of political power or because their goals are not our goals, or indeed, many of these Democrats gravitate toward the same corporate mandate as their Republican counterparts.

We’ve seen over the past year a growing and growing outcry for everyday people to speak out and work together in organized protests to resist the atrocities committed by a government that deploys masked and armed thug squads to terrorize undocumented residents and US citizens alike in our major cities.

A new word has arrived in our standard vocabulary: “neighbor” where the noun “neighbor” has taken the element of an action verb.

In the city of Minneapolis, Minnesota, citizens are bringing home cooked meals to their undocumented neighbors and bringing them groceries and necessities. They are monitoring ICE agents and alerting their neighbors to their presence by leading Chicago residents in front of them with loud whistles as a warning.

Today, we humans—neighbors of every age, gender, ethnic background, and, yes, socioeconomic class—are Hercules, Wonder Women, fiery knights, winning lottery tickets, angels who, if one believes in a merciful God, are here doing God’s work.

Flames usually start as small embers. But with increasing amounts of fuel and oxygen, they eventually become an all-consuming fire that consumes everything in its path.

So it is with social movements: they begin as ideas in the minds of some people, and they begin to capture the interests of others, they increase the source of oxygen that encourages the growth of larger and larger numbers. Eventually a mass movement emerged to challenge opposing enemies and ideologies.

Ezra Levin, a leader of the grassroots movement Indivisible, and an organizer of the “No Kings” protests, outlined the goals of the recent move:

1. Defending democracy against authoritarianism
2. To challenge specific administrative policies
3. Mobilizing and mobilizing disaffected voters

Nowhere on this agenda, however, is the total abolition of the authoritarian state as it currently exists in the United States listed, as a single or even a few mass demonstrations usually cannot accomplish this.

Rather, the purpose of this protest is to “show” those of us who participate, and even those who watch from their living room couches staring at their TV screens, that we have a voice, a loud voice, we have agency, and we have an important role to play in making decisions. our Future

Ultimately, we are the heroes of our lives. We are the heroes who came to save our country and our democracy from those who would destroy it for their personal gain of power and wealth.

Now that we have reached spring, may the grass roots grow and fill the towns and cities, rural communities and farms of all regions of the United States.

In the stirring words of anthropologist Margaret Mead:

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”