Democracy – Cathy's Blog!

Posted on July 7, 2026 by Cathy Edgett · 2 Comments

Unity

When Trump intervened for the U.S. in the World Cup, the team was compromised. They had to lose because any win would never be seen as “clean”. The required motivation was lost. A winning team is about more than skill. It’s about unity, rules, and respect.

Thomas Friedman writes today on how Trump has fleeced the whole country, especially his own supporters. Trump takes the Woody Guthrie song, This Land Was Made for You and Me, and makes it: “This land is my land, this land is my land / From California to the New York island / From my cryptocurrency to the Qatari 747 / This land belongs to me and mine.”

He even took over the 250th anniversary celebration to make it about him. The weather didn’t agree.

Friedman ends his column with Obama’s speech at the opening ceremony of his Presidential center in Chicago. His favorite passage was this:

As algorithms keep feeding us a steady stream of distraction and outrage, as only the loudest, most extreme voices get attention, fanning our prejudices, appealing to our basest, most tribal instincts, it’s tempting to give in to cynicism and even despair, to stop trying. We start thinking that appeals to democracy and civic participation are corny and old-fashioned and boring and naïve, that the very idea of working on behalf of the common good is a sucker’s bet, and that in order for us to win, somebody else has got to lose. I get it. I am not immune to anger or doubt, but I do know this: When we lose faith in each other, when we stop believing that voting matters, that citizenship matters, that our collective voices matter, that how we treat each other no longer matters, and we give away our power to decide our own futures, we open the door to the most ruthless, or the most careless, or the most fearful among us, who see some groups and some people as more equal than others, and see government as nothing more than a way to divvy up the spoils and punish enemies and keep those who are different in their place.

Obama continued, “I do not believe that is the story of America that prevails in the end. … I remain convinced that the overwhelming majority of Americans … aren’t looking for perpetual anger and division. They are looking for fairness and common sense and mutual respect, that deep in our gut we want to find a way to turn toward each other again, not further away.”

Friedman ends his column with this: “So, Democrats, you have your assignment. It’s to not let Trump bait you into blind rage and extreme ideas. He feeds off that. Just focus on how much he has been fleecing all of us while tearing us apart. And how much Democrats intend to pull the whole country together.“

’Cause this land was made for you and me.

Posted on December 1, 2025 by Cathy Edgett

Hot Chocolate Mornings

I head outside and walk briskly feeling I’m back in the Midwest where I grew up. No loitering or sitting on benches, just moving along, as I hope the country does as we strive for and implement morality, and cultivate and honor democracy.

I read that salmon are in Coyote Creek near where I live, so I went to check and didn’t see any today, which may be because the tide is pouring in, so no ducks, fish, or otters, only waves in the water and reeds.

I’m with words from Anne Bancroft in Weavers of Wisdom: The Senecas hold a stone and when it becomes warm and pulsing, they enter the silence within.

Thanks to the rain, mushrooms sprout in our yard.

Posted on June 13, 2025 by Cathy Edgett

Networking

Researchers have found that land plants evolved on Earth about 700 million years ago and land fungi evolved about 1,300 million years ago. Fungi connect with mycelium; they network.

In reading Robert MacFarlane’s book Is a River Alive?, I learn about Giuliana Furci who is known for her advocacy and research into the fungal kingdom. Her relationship is such that she can be in a car in a dark forest and sense a certain type of mushroom.

She says about hopping out of a car to discover a colony of Avatar-blue mushrooms, “I didn’t see the mushrooms, exactly. I heard them. If you know how to listen, fungi just … tell you where they are. I’ll get this feeling that there’s a fungus around. I feel, no, I know, that there’s something – no, somebody – who wants to see me. You get a call-out from them.”

“The fuzz in the matrix. That’s still the best way I can describe it. I can say very definitely that it’s a communication – a two-way interaction. The fungi know I’m there, as well as the reverse. Fungi have a different vibration to plants and animals. The colours move differently, I find. And fungi has a … shine that’s different to the shine of plants. It’s more … opague. And they have a very different energy than plants – much more of a watery or liquid feel.”

And now we organize a fluid energy to protest against dictatorship and cruelty. We connect and infiltrate to destroy their plans.

As Henry David Thoreau wrote: “This is the only way, we say, but there are as many ways as there can be drawn radii from one centre.”

We are radii, connecting through the environmental webs that nourish and sustain us all.

Mushrooms on the Oakwood Trail in January

Posted on June 29, 2024 by Cathy Edgett

Politics

I started reading Erik Larson’s new book The Demon of Unrest. It’s about the six months before the Civil War. He wrote it because it reminded him of today, and I’m drawn into it and see the similarities as to division.

I read Heather Cox Richardson as usual today and am struck by her emphasis on what Trump said. I never intended to bring politics into this blog but I feel things are at a critical point right now. There’s the Supreme Court corrupted by Trump and their recent decisions, and Trump’s connection with Putin. Read her today as I pull out a few paragraphs.

HCR: He said something else last night in his slurry of words that jumped out. Somewhere in his discussion of Putin’s invasion of eastern Ukraine in February 2022, Trump said: “Putin saw that, he said, you know what, I think we’re going to go in and maybe take my—this was his dream. I talked to him about it, his dream.”

She goes on to give Trump’s connection with Putin and his dream. You can read how it connects for yourself. https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/june-28-2024

HCR: In last night’s debate, Trump insisted that Putin never would have invaded Ukraine on his watch (although Putin in fact continued his 2014 assault during Trump’s term, and Trump tried to withhold support for Ukraine).

Last night, Trump claimed that the Ukrainians are losing the war and described how sad it was that their country is being destroyed (without mentioning that it is Putin’s unprovoked war that is doing that damage). He also significantly exaggerated how much money the U.S. has contributed to Ukraine’s defense.

So when Trump last night said about the 2022 invasion, “Putin saw that, he said, you know what, I think we’re going to go in and maybe take my—this was his dream. I talked to him about it, his dream,” it sounded as if he had been in on the Mariupol Plan. And when he talked about how the war needed to end, especially in light of Putin’s recent “peace” plan, it sounded as if perhaps he still is.

And he promised, yet again, that he and he alone could get Gershkovich released.

The Democrats need to rally, and when they win expand the Supreme Court to correct recent decisions intended to destroy our democracy. It’s not a time for division. We need to come together, yes, with discussion, but also with resolve to defeat Trump, Putin, and the Christian Right.

I feel Ruth Bader Ginsberg damaged her legacy by not resigning from the Supreme Court so someone with her leanings could be appointed. We are in dangerous territory with talk of replacing Biden as though we might want someone younger, we might not agree on who this younger person should be. That aside, President Biden was rated 14th by the 154 presidential historians who rated Trump dead last. They rated Trump the worst of all the U.S. presidents and that’s really saying something as they haven’t all been winners.

The Democratic party has always been complex as they work to embrace a multitude of people and viewpoints. The issue of age is key in this election, key on both sides. We celebrate this country’s independence next Thursday, July 4th. May this not be the last year that we do.