Put a Little Love in Your Heart

“Put a Little Love in Your Heart!”

This tune by Jackie DeShannon was a hit in 1969, later reprised by Annie Lennox and Al Green.

It was among the social anthems of a tumultuous era when the civic and cultural temperature was high. Anger over the war in Vietnam and racial resentment had the nation at a constant simmer, occasionally boiling over.

Assassinations of Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. dampened hope, and optimism that had briefly surged in the mid-sixties was deeply submersed by the election of Tricky Dick Nixon.

It is paralleled by our time now, when the hope inspired by Barack Obama’s tenure was drowned in the surge of racial and cultural resentment that produced the most profane, incompetent and mean-spirited president in American history.

History is usually described by political eras and in policy or economic terms. I’ve never believed that this is apt or accurate. History is actually written in broad social and cultural strokes. The economic or policy issues are almost incidental. This is why, for example, that a certain segment of the electorate will vote against their own interests. It’s not that they are too ignorant or stupid to understand the ramifications of their political actions. It’s that they don’t care.

That’s why Trump has succeeded. He knew, or the puppets pulling his strings knew, that all of politics is a culture war, not a battle of ideas and analysis. “Owning the libs” is the only objective of Republican politics. Egg prices, tariffs, Panama, Greenland and most of DOGE activities are a sideshow. A dangerous and damaging sideshow to be sure, but not in the center ring for most conservatives. They are just happy that the libs are finally getting screwed and getting it good and hard.

It’s the libs at Columbia, the libs at Harvard, the libs at the Kennedy Center, the libs at the Smithsonian, the libs in the media, the smug eggheads in NIH, the lib know-it-alls in major law firms . . .

Trump’s cabinet members are all - every single one of them - second rate posers. It is laughable to watch a faux tough guy like Pistol Pete Hegseth preening around in his fashionable mod suits, heading up chats that are insecure in every meaning of the word.

Watching the incompetence was surpassed only by the disgust I felt at the glee expressed when their bombs blew innocent civilians to bits. The emojis were like a celebration of a middle school football victory. I have no affection for Houthis and have no insight into whether the strikes were useful or necessary. But killing any humans, much less innocent bystanders, should be a somber and sobering experience, not cause for whooping it up.

Watching Mike Waltz, insecure Director of National Security, explaining how a journalist got into a classified chat about the execution of a war plan was like listening to a dog-less child explain how the dog ate his homework.

It is only in an environment like this that a nasty little prick like Stephen Miller could weasel his way into a position of influence. Or a clearly lightweight blonde princess out of a parody of 90210 could mount the stage in a White House briefing room.

It is amateur hour in Washington all around.

Imagine if a group of giddy high school kids took to the Broadway stage as the cast of Hamilton. Or if the tipsy winners of a corner bar’s karaoke contest mounted a production of Madame Butterfly at the Metropolitan Opera.

In addition to the DEI purges, the trans hatred, the bumbling chat sessions, the Elon Chain Saw Massacre, the masked men capturing legal residents on street corners and the full disassembly of public schools . . . these lib-owning doofuses seem committed to removing every competent human from government service. Ya see, real competence embarrasses them.

So, having gotten that off my chest, what to do? There is an encouraging upswing in activism to join or support. But many folks I know are choosing to back away a little from the endless torrent of psychological sewage.

I think when all else seems grim or hopeless, take Jackie DeShannon’s advice. Put a little love in your heart.

Several times a week my wife and I go to the elementary school to pick up our grandson. Watching small children swinging through a playground can even make a troubled heart smile.

We may not be able to stop these nasty dilettantes from changing the country. But we can’t let them change us.

It is time to hold our loved ones, especially children, close.