It’s a classic war movie scene: in the heat of battle, a soldier pulls a pin from a grenade and flings it over a wall, or into an enemy bunker, and, a few seconds later, “Wham!” the grenade explodes, the audience cheers, and the good guys advance. There are also other classic war movie scenes in which some baby-faced recruit, still learning how to pull pins and throw grenades, pulls the pin, but drops the grenade, now with fuse smoking, the audience cringes, and everyone runs. “Wham!” And, there is the classic war movie scene where, having pulled the pin, the recruit freezes…grenade in hand…and the (always) gruff range safety sergeant calmly puts a pin back into the grenade, the recruit faints, the audience laughs, and there is no “Wham!”
These scenarios are simplified, but they are familiar enough to elicit knowing nods from civilians and military veterans alike. Unlike most civilians, though, veterans and active-duty servicemen and women know that it is possible to put a pin back in a grenade only if the safety lever (or spoon or pan) has not fallen off. The lever, held in place by the pin, is the only thing between “Wham!” and “Not Wham!” once the pin has been pulled. “Once the pin is pulled, Mr. Grenade is not your friend,” is a training mantra best remembered.
Right now, Americans are in a room with a grenade with the pin pulled, but the safety lever has yet to fall off. In the room are everyday folks who worry about health care, job security and equity, national security, international stability, immigration, human rights, civil rights, education, infrastructure, clear air and clean water, national parks, unbiased justice, and many more issues that must be addressed by a leader who can demonstrate intelligence, compassion, a sense of history, fairness, and humility. We have had such leaders in the past—one need only to read Doris Kearns Goodwin’s latest book, Leadership in Turbulent Times, to find such ennobling traits among former presidents.
We are once again in turbulent times, but the president we have now is holding a grenade designed to rip apart our founding documents and more than 200 years of laws and social contracts protecting all of us from the chaos of tyranny.
The grenade of usurpation, division, deception, and mistrust is in Donald Trump’s hand. The safety lever, affixed to the grenade by our Founders in anticipation of a tyrannical leader, is the Constitution. The pin is common sense. Under Trump's sweaty, unsteady, palm lie the Bill of Rights and all the Amendments that hold us together, Rights and Amendments he believes he can circumvent (the Fourteenth), hype and misinterpret (the Second), or debase and discredit (the First). The rest of the Constitution, also in his grip, is slowly inching off the fuse, and once it falls away, all we embrace as a free society will fall away with it.
Two things stand between an unwelcome tension and total chaos: the pin of common sense (which was pulled by the Electoral College two years ago), and the safety lever of the Constitution. The anxiety many of us feel today in the final week before the mid-term elections stems, I think, from not being certain that the pin of common sense, which looks an awful lot like a voting ballot, will be reinserted fully into the Trumpian fragmentation grenade. What I do know for certain is that we must put that pin back in.
With every passing day—with every passing hour of presidential tweeting and rally bombasts—Trump is releasing his grip on the safety lever. Today’s news that the president is seriously considering an Executive Order to nullify the birthright provision of the Fourteenth Amendment—even if his desire is thwarted ultimately by Congress and/or the courts—should send shivers down the spines of all citizens. He will not be satisfied until he has shredded every ethical, moral, and social norm holding the fabric or our nation together.
Finding the grenade’s pin is a relatively easy task. If you are a thoughtful, concerned, pro-active, open-minded American of voting age, you are part of that pin that was jerked crudely out of the safety lever in 2016. As for inserting the pin, when you vote (not if, but when), you will join with others to form a pin long enough to once again secure the safety lever. Keep in mind, a short pin won’t do; only a long pin, formed from the votes of tens of millions of Americans who want to take the grenade out of the president’s hand, will achieve the desired “Not Wham!” result.
We are, collectively, the pin of common sense that must be reinserted to buy us time to wrest the grenade of Democracy’s destruction from Mr. Trump’s control. Once taken from him, it must be defused and its explosive innards discarded, its exterior shell melted down, never to be reassembled. Vote next Tuesday; put the pin back in its rightful and safe place.
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