Last Saturday was the second annual Women’s March, held in cities across the country and around the world. There really isn’t a single cause to march for; there’s a plethora of causes, all meaningful to some of the people attending.
Last year’s march was a direct response to the election of a man who brags, not confesses – as that would imply remorse – about sexually assaulting women because he is rich and can get away with it, as well as responding to a political movement that seeks to reduce choice and equality for anybody outside their core support base, which is typically white men. And so we march for equality and choice, and the right to fight back against sexual assault and harassment.
Our political system is a mess of contradictions. In the Gettysburg Address, President Lincoln described our government as “of the people, by the people, for the people,” but the people elected at the federal level are increasingly out of touch with the average person. The base congressional salary is $174,000 a year; assuming a standard 40-hour work week for 52 weeks, that calculates out to over $83 per hour. Yet the federal minimum wage is $7.25 – an annual salary of $15,080, assuming it’s a full-time job, and the highest state-level minimum wage is only $11. There are no specific set skills required to run for Congress… what exactly is it that makes them worth $83 an hour compared to people we rely on daily in every aspect of our lives, from restaurant employees to retail workers to teachers and more? At best, to run for Congress you need enough money to start the process – it’s not an appealing process to the average person who is struggling to put food on their tables. As so we march for a living wage.
Our federal representatives have affordable health care provided by our government as one of their many benefits, yet debate whether the rest of us should. Most are college educated, yet again, seem too willing to pull federal money from education at all levels. And we march for education and health care, which are key to being one of the great nations of the world.
There’s a declining number of veterans in Congress – at one point, the House and Senate included significant percentages (see here), and has moved away from that – which is perhaps how the support for our active military and veterans has declined. I don’t mean supporting the wars – that’s a different political discussion – but the people who are willing to put themselves in danger to protect our country’s interests. Congress, having shut down (again) specifically declined to fund our active military salaries, yet continue to fund their own salaries. Our active military make far less money than our federal representatives; they live on those funds. As so we march for the people who have and are putting their lives on the line for us, only to be forgotten by our government whenever they become inconvenient.
Over the years, the laws have evolved to ban slavery, extend voting rights to women and minorities, and more, recognizing in particular that we are a secular nation and as such, our laws should reflect that separation of church and state in order to allow diversity to feed into our system and improve our country. We know the United States can do better, because we have repeatedly improved ourselves. To paraphrase The Last Jedi, we’re not fighting what we hate, we’re marching for what we love.
And we vote.