I have found a new activist calling in my life! I now feel a burning desire to conduct a campaign to have January 23 declared a national holiday!
It would be a day of joyous celebration, from sea to shining sea. January 23 is the day when the most important, visionary amendment was added to the Constitution of the United States.
Whenever I think about the squatter currently occupying the White House, it brings me great joy to know that I won’t be able to call him that much longer.
I’m speaking, of course, of the Twentieth Amendment. It’s true that anybody who’s not a political science major probably can’t recite on the spot what the Twentieth Amendment is about. I didn’t know what it was either until I recently felt compelled to look it up. I just knew that somewhere along the line, the Constitution was amended to change Inauguration Day from March 4—which was put in place to allow three months for officials to travel to Washington, D.C.—to January 20; I came to learn that was the Twentieth Amendment. It was ratified on January 23, 1933.
Since the election, I realize more each day what an important positive difference this amendment makes in the life of every American, and how miserable things would be had it never been written. Whenever I think about the squatter currently occupying the White House, it brings me great joy to know that I won’t be able to call him that much longer. I’ll happily retire that go-to jab from my joke arsenal. The day when he is forced to abdicate can’t come a minute too soon.
But if it wasn’t for the Twentieth Amendment, we’d all be subjected to his rantings and raving, his acts of gleeful cruelty and revenge, and so much more for an extra forty-three days. We’d only be able to find small solace in the fact that 2021 is not a leap year. That would be unbearable!
This is why it’s imperative that January 23 be honored nationwide as a day of great liberation. On this day, we’ll all pay homage to the great American George W. Norris, the Republican Senator from Nebraska who first introduced the Twentieth Amendment.
History has proven Norris to be an incredible soothsayer who foresaw a scenario where human relations in the United States could be poisoned and distorted enough for someone like the squatter to rise to power.
Norris wasn’t much of a Republican. He introduced the legislation that created the Tennessee Valley Authority, he endorsed The Progressive’s founder, Bob LaFollette, in his bid for President in 1924, and he backed every presidential campaign of Franklin D. Roosevelt.
But even if the only thing Norris ever did was come up with the Twentieth Amendment, we would all owe him a debt of deep gratitude.