The destruction of DEI initiatives in schools and businesses throughout the country has left people scrambling to understand what it all means for those most affected and for all of us. We have come to understand that DEI programs and policies are not just for people of color, but also for the physically and cognitively challenged. That not only those on the right have criticisms but also some on the left.

Thirteen-year-old Anne Frank, hiding from the Nazis with her family in an attic in Amsterdam, wrote, “In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart.” When I first read her words, I remember being filled with admiration for this young girl — for her courage, her ability to find joy in life as her world grew smaller and her future more bleak.

As we listened  to the president’s plan to take over Greenland – to wrest it from Denmark and annex it to the United States – we started wondering if perhaps the president thinks Greenland is actually green. We thought maybe he believes this massive arctic ice cube is the perfect spot for a new golf course or three. Is he envisioning an entire greenway from coast to coast, catering to the elite golfers of the world?

We find ourselves almost speechless as we watch the news and hear the heartless response of our president to the deaths of children on an airplane; to the deportation of immigrants; to the dismantling of programs meant to combat centuries of inequality; and to the dissolution of international alliances that protect our worldwide community.

Last weekend, when one of our adult sons returned from doing his family’s weekly grocery shopping, he unpacked the usual items: fruits and vegetables, milk, cereal, yogurt, bagels, bread, cheese, snacks for the first grader, chicken and fish for dinners, and pasta. One regular item, however, was missing: eggs. Not because prices were so low as a result of President Trump making good on his campaign promise. And not because the prices were so high they were unaffordable.

For those of us who like metaphors, there was nothing like the raging snow storm followed by bone-chilling cold that accompanied Monday’s inauguration. As we dug out from many inches of the white stuff, and negotiated carefully to avoid the black ice, we felt vulnerable, a bit unprotected, and worried about neighbors and families who might be stranded without heat or food.

Hate crimes and hate groups seem to be everywhere. We hear and read about them on a daily basis. While discrimination and prejudice against “the other” are nothing new, these current strains of venom seem to be striking dangerously and frighteningly close to home.

January 6 has come and gone. No storming the Capitol with the more than tacit consent of the president. No killing of law enforcement officials. No threats to the lives of senators and congressmen. No conspiracy theories or accusations of stolen votes. Without mobs or disruption, without protests about the legitimacy of his right to the presidency, Congress certified that Donald J. Trump won the 2024 presidential election and will take office in 12 more days.

Does anyone else remember standing in line in elementary school in the ’50s to receive the first polio vaccine shot? Those were the ones developed by Jonas Salk before a liquid drop form came into use a few years later. My parents were particularly excited after having watched with fear as my brother was hospitalized with polio a decade earlier.

President-elect Trump may be a liar, but he clearly keeps some promises. His cabinet and staff choices show that he keeps promises to some of his friends and some promises to all Americans. He promised a new way of doing business and that’s just what he plans to do. If you’ve missed what’s to come, here it is, all in one frightening array of appointments.

Some of us are still licking our wounds. Some are still shocked and in disbelief. All of us are horrified that more than half the voters in our country chose for their leader a man who speaks vulgarly about women and veterans and immigrants and so many others. Horrified that the most powerful head of state in the world is a convicted felon who wants to rule with impunity, overrun the system of checks and balances in our federal system, and deny basic rights to many law-abiding citizens.

Tomorrow night is the night we have all been waiting for. Yet, it’s a little like having your senior prom postponed indefinitely because of a blizzard.

The Leading Ladies Executive Committee is endorsing Kamala Harris for president of the United States.

We’ve had a busy past few days, with voter registration drives at Beverly High School and Landmark School and our YOUth Votes Count event in partnership with the Cabot Theater.

Thank you for being part of our postcard campaign and ordering our Art as Activism cards to send to reluctant voters. Because of you and others, more than 3,000 of our cards have been sent in the last two months!

The most consequential outcome of last week’s debate may have been the endorsement of Kamala Harris by Taylor Swift. To quote President Biden, “I mean it. That’s not hyperbole. I really mean it.”

Two weeks ago we were wringing our hands with despair that the November elections might be upended by threats to voter certification in several states including Georgia, where recent rulings by a newly appointed pro-Trump majority state election board passed new rules that purport to legalize the blockage of certification of votes.

We heard the call last week. Again and again. “Do something.”

Sitting in the cafe of the Boston Public Library last Friday for the broadcast of Boston Public Radio Live, it was hard not to be excited when David Hogg Zoomed in for an interview with Jim Braude and guest host Andrea Cabral. Hogg, a survivor of the Parkland High School mass shooting of 2018, co-founder of March for Our Lives and Leaders We Deserve, spoke eloquently and convincingly of the importance of enlisting and working to elect a new generation of leaders in local, state, and federal government positions.

There is excitement in the air while a new figure takes center stage as the presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party. The race seems very close right now, and the results may likely hinge on voter turnout – specifically, on the turnout of women and young people in battleground states.