I have not been impressed by the alleged heroism of Mike Pence as so many in the media seem to be.
On January 6th Pence chose not to break the law. Big Deal.
Most of us choose that option every single day.
Then there is Shay Moss and her mother Ruby Moss, who her friends know as Lady Ruby.
They are working class Black women whose testimony before the September 6th Joint Committee filled me with rage.
Miss Moss is an election worker for Fulton County, Georgia. When things get busy, her mom works with her.
Yesterday afternoon I was riveted to the televised hearings in a way I have not been riveted before.
Miss Moss explained to the Committee that she loved her job.
She said she loved it because of her grandmother, who was not allowed to vote in Georgia back in the day because, well, Black people weren’t allowed to vote in Georgia.
“I’ve always been told by my grandmother how important it is to vote and how people before me, a lot of people, older people in my family, did not have that right,” Moss told the committee. “So what I loved most about my job were the older voters. They like to call. They like to talk to you. I was excited always about sending out all the absentee ballots for the elderly disabled people. I even remember driving to a hospital to give someone her absentee ballot application.”
In order to overturn the results of the Georgia vote, Donald Trump and his band of insurrectionists had to get past people like Shay Moss and Lady Ruby.
They had to turn Miss Moss’ life upside down.
Shay Moss isn’t an elected official. Lady Ruby is not a politician.
They were working class Black women who loved getting people to vote, especially those who did not in the recent past legally have that right.
And Donald Trump had no problem calling them hustlers and other racist names.
As I watched Shay Moss and Ruby Moss and heard what they went through for doing the job they loved and the reasons they loved it, nothing Trump did was worse.