Is this a 'John Q' moment?

Miami Herald

28-03-2025

One of my favorite movies stars Denzel Washington as John Q. Archibald, and his beautiful wife Denise, is played by Kimberly Elise.
They have a nine-year-old son who was in need of a serious lifesaving heart surgical procedure. John Q. struggles all his life to make ends meet, like most Americans today, so when his son suddenly went into heart failure, it was clear he was miles away from the money needed to green light the surgery.
Every day for the past year, his wife had been telling John Q. that he must do more. While his son lay in the hospital close to death, his wife, with tears in her eyes, loudly proclaims, 'Do Something!' It was then that John Q. realizes that he needed to do something radical. He decides that he would storm the hospital, kidnap the doctors and make them perform the procedure.
This is the story of our failing Republic today. America is at a crossroads and its leadership is betraying its citizenry in a major way. They are laying off thousands of people that are lifelong employees of the government. They have had no due process. They are not being advised of a reduction in staff.
They are not being let go because they under performed, have days and weeks of unfinished work, or a threat to their fellow employees or our democracy. A sharp bladed knife is being swung at them from on high. It has taken many of them years to obtain America's iconic middle class status only to be within days of losing it due to no fault of their own.
The average American is only 60 days away from financial ruin. So while we are early in the process of layoffs by mid May, if not before, you are going to see thousands of protesters take to the streets and demand of their governments to come to their aid and give their jobs back. Then the republic will begin to feel the weight of its citizens that have been tossed aside.
If you think those that stormed the capital on January 6th were something, wait until you witness the calculated attacks of a 15-20 year government veteran employee who knows how to wield a computer and a protest banner.
I am here to tell you that each one of them will find each other and when they do, the devil will have to pay the tax for the horrible way that each of these employees have been treated. Dare I say that this attack will look different than any that we have seen since the inner struggles of the new republic of the late 1700's.
These folks will be armed with families that are being impacted by their recent downgrade from middle class to new recipients of unemployment checks and welfare benefits such as food stamps. They will be mostly white and middle aged men and women.
Their protests will be treated differently as most black folks will stay home because, quite frankly, how we endure hardship and coalesce around troubled times is different. Sadly, we have been let down by America so much that it has lost its sting. From segregation, Jim Crow, the erosion of Affirmative Action, to being the main participants in the school to prison pipeline that plagues our children, we are used to being let down by America.
All we have ever wanted is for America to love us as we love it. We need to stop this snow storm now before the avalanche comes.