A recent article by Stacy Schiff in the Smithsonian Magazine (October 2022) focused on one of our Founding Fathers, Samuel Adams. Schiff describes him as: “Deeply idealistic – a moral people, Adams held, would elect moral leaders – he believed virtue the soul of democracy. To have a villainous ruler imposed on you was a misfortune. To elect him yourself was a disgrace.”

As the new year and a new Congress begins, I can’t help but wonder what Adams would think of the current state of one of the major political parties in these United States and its control of the House of Representatives.

The 118th U.S. House recently convened with the Republican Party holding a slim majority, which enables members to set the legislative agenda and make committee assignments, as well as determine the chair and makeup of each committee. Included in this majority are some of the most outrageous members imaginable. QAnon supporters, climate change skeptics and election deniers, believers in space lasers and Italian satellites “rigging” our elections, school shooting victim harassers, pathological liars and gun-toting bombasts.

We can be thankful the Senate and the presidency are in the proven, capable hands of Democrats, and they will serve as the necessary check on the outrageous use of power by the House. As the disgrace foretold by Adams predicted, the “villainous rulers” elected to lead our House of Representatives goes about its business, we can be thankful for a sane, moral Senate and presidency.

Gene Orr

Hesperus