A few months ago the old children’s rhyme came to me as I was drifting off to sleep one night:
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall
All the king’s horses
And all the king’s men
Couldn’t put Humpty together again.
I have no idea why I remembered this rhyme at that precise moment that night, but I do know I immediately thought, “Yes. This is what our political situation feels like at this moment in time. A giant egg, swaying on the top of a high wall.”
Humpty—which I suppose is all of us—sitting where we once thought was so safe, so sturdy, so impenetrable, now seems ready to fall at any moment. Some pieces have already crashed to the ground.
The truly disheartening news will be if Humpty really cannot be put back together again. Has our democracy been broken forever?
In my opinion, we have a great crew of king’s men in the White House right now doing all they can to put Humpty back together again after the former President did all he could to shove Humpty face forward onto the ground from the top of the wall. Humpty does indeed have a few noticeable cracks, but my hope is that Humpty is not broken forever.
It is hard to pin down the exact origin of the Humpty Dumpty rhyme and its title character, though we tend to immediately think of him as a large oversized, thus overly fragile, egg, but that is more presumption that fact. The rhyme doesn’t mention an egg; but the illustrators of the rhyme almost always do.
Some deeper thinkers have suggested that Humpty Dumpty represented King Richard III, who, in EnglishTudor histories as well as Shakespeare’s play, was depicted—not as an egg—but as hump-backed. Richard III fell and was defeated at Bosworth Field in 1485. By 1842 another theory appeared saying that Humpty represented the downfall of Cardinal Wolsey, who, like Humpty, was not buried in his intended tomb, his intended shell, but fell into a worse situation.
In our modern times there is also Robert Penn Warren's American novel All the King's Men (1946), the story of politician Willie Stark (based on the career of the infamous Louisiana Senator and Governor Huey Long), his rise to power and position and his eventual fall.
The nursery rhyme theme is echoed once again in Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward's book All the President's Men, about the Watergate scandal, as President Nixon and his staff could not repair or sweep away the damage from that scandal.
I will always think of Humpty Dumpty as I remember the insurrection of January 6, 2021. There were those who fought violently that day to push Humpty—our democracy—off it’s wall and to break it forever. As hard as they tried that day, as fiercely as they were encouraged into violence by those who sat safely far from the dirty work, Humpty did not fall. He teetered and tottered, but he did not crash. He did not break. He teetered and a tottered and indeed he still sits on a very shaky wall. Humpty reminds us of how fragile democracy is, as fragile as an egg shell.
On January 6, 2021, Humpty Dumpty almost had a great fall. ALMOST. That is our good fortune. We can mend the cracks, we can bind up the wounds, we can give it another go. There is still hope.
I have faith in old Humpty Dumpty. I will call my Senators with that faith, I will give to those candidates that I know are working to keep Humpty together with that faith, I will vote with that faith. Why? Because I believe, naive as I may be, that we can glue Humpty together again. It will take all of us who believe that our democracy is worth saving. It will take each of us to fight to keep this fragile egg together.
Believe in the egg. Have hope. Humpty Dumpty is still on the wall. Let’s work to keep him there.
This is such an important year to put these pieces back together. I am hoping that those of us who truly love our democracy working together can all do that. It is just so fragile. I have to believe that those working behind the scenes are working hard to get this done.
Thx for this and for your newsletter… jo ann hallmark introduced me to your words and I look forward to seeing them show up in my mailbox. Happy new year ❤️