Katie Porter’s White Board (and Other Things I’m Thankful For)

By now, it’s probably a cliche of lazy journalism to fulfill a November deadline with a perfunctory list of “things that we are thankful for.” But the truth is, I’m not a journalist. And nobody enjoys a perfunctory list more than I do. So let’s go…

I’m thankful for Pfizer, for Moderna, for Johnson and Johnson. And I’m thankful for Lexapro. Make that, very thankful for Lexapro.

I’m thankful for frontline workers, restaurant workers, supermarket workers, nurses, doctors, paramedics, firefighters and police. Except, obviously, for those police who murder unarmed Black people and routinely get away with it unless a citizen happens to film it.

I’m thankful for citizens who happen to film police murders.

I’m thankful to President Biden for saving democracy, being a decent human, improving our roads and bridges, and trying desperately to patch the remaining holes in our social safety net.

I’m forever thankful for our social safety net. And may it soon also include paid leave, family leave, and new healthcare and climate protections.

I’m thankful for the rule of law, the Constitution, and democratic rules and guardrails that persisted against an all-out assault.

I’m thankful for free and fair elections still deciding who governs America despite an all-out assault.

I’m thankful for the January 6th commission for holding insurrectionists accountable for attempting to overturn our elections and violently cease the processes of democracy.

I’m thankful to Reps Cheney and Kinzinger for, in this case, placing the sanctity of democracy over fealty to party.

I’m thankful that (for now) Roe v. Wade remains the law of the land and that women’s reproductive liberties still remain protected at the federal level.

I’m thankful for Katie Porter and her trusty white board explaining the shit out of things to befuddled congressional witnesses.

I’m thankful for a free, unfettered press continuing to speak truth to power. Unless that press is hell-bent on promoting conspiracy theories, pseudo-science, mask denial, vaccine denial, and riots where so-called patriots sought to hang the Vice President for adhering to the law.

I’m thankful for truth and science.

I’m thankful to Dr. Anthony Fauci for continuing to champion truth and science, in the face of prodigious personal attacks to make him stop.

I’m thankful to Stacey Abrams for making her life’s work the protection of voting rights and the recognition that great swaths of our body politic believe they can only preserve power by denying suffrage to people of color.

I’m super thankful for my family and my health.

I’m almost equally thankful for UCLA beating USC so I can smile for the next 361 days.

And finally, I’m thankful for America. Sure, we have tremendous strides to make on income inequality and extending the American Dream to all people.

But I’m incredibly thankful that faced with a creeping, almost goosestepping march towards fascism, we chose democracy. When faced with relentless canards about electoral fraud, the courts and congress chose to believe the truth. And even against a violent insurrection, incited and directed by the sitting president himself, democracy held.

It may be insane that we’ve reached a point where “democracy held” is a victory. But the last 5 years have certainly proved we cannot take democracy for granted. So I don’t.

Happy Thanksgiving everybody!