In the 1939 movie, “The Wizard of Oz,” our young heroine, Dorothy, is alone and terrified as a cyclone approaches. When I think about our national and international situation, I feel like Dorothy.
As the movie’s humongous, deafening storm moves in for the kill, a farm hand shouts, “It’s a twister!” Our world today feels like a twister–a horror movie-like chaotic cyclone of corruption, disruption, and turbo-charged hot air.
Unethical national leaders and their compliant underlings hurl out lies, falsehoods, and exaggerations that make me cringe. Their words and actions are more frightening than the lions and tigers and bears Dorothy fears meeting in the dark forest on her way to Oz. “Immigrants are stealing our jobs, oh my!” “Haitians are eating our pets, oh my!” “Babies get 80 vaccines at once, oh my!” We’ve got liars and tyrants, and fears, oh, my!
Even real news, factual reports, are so shocking they crash land in my mind like hurricanes of hyperbole. “CAIR, a Muslim Nonprofit, Gets a Terrorism Label in Florida and Texas,” screams a New York Times July 31 headline. A National Public Radio headline reads, “In Nebraska, Americans begin to lose Medicaid under [the current administration’s] work rules.” Slate.com adds to the gale with “[President’s] EPA Found a Sneaky New Way to Make Our Air More Polluted.”
But Dorothy’s example can save us. Remember the movie and ask yourself, “What would Dorothy do?” No matter what, she kept fighting to get home. Dorothy, naïve little Dorothy, never gave up even with a green wicked old witch screaming inches from her face the blood-curdling threat, “I’ll get you, my pretty, and your little dog too!”
In a foreign land Dorothy kept moving forward. She followed the wisdom of her senior advisor, Glinda, the Good Witch of the North: Follow the yellow brick road. Today Glinda would explain to a 2026 Dorothy that the yellow brick road is the rule of law, the U.S. Constitution, and our democratic norms. The road home is fighting our fears, maintaining our ethics, participating in our democracy, and upholding our values.
Granted, if I was Dorothy, I would not have picked a scarecrow, a tin man, and a cowardly lion to be my best buddies. But Dorothy was smart. She knew the worst thing would be to go it alone like the U.S. did in invading Venezuela and in killing at least 221 people on 67 alleged drug-trafficking vessels. Dorothy, a unifier, would not have pulled out of 66 international organizations, conventions, and treaties like the U.S. did in January 2026.
Today, when the most powerful person in the world announces he will use his power for a campaign of retribution against perceived enemies, a legitimate first response is for us to weep. Then learn. Then use our time and talents to act positively and peaceably. Write a letter. Lodge a protest. Fund a counter action. Spread the truth. Support a cause. Promote a candidate. That’s like clicking together the heels of Dorothy’s magical ruby slippers. That’s how we use small but essential democratic tools to fight abuse, neglect, lies, lawlessness, and corruption. But taking positive, peaceful action isn’t the end.
We must dance and sing. In the movie, separated from family and having no idea how to get back to her Kansas home, Dorothy takes the time to sing. She skips arm in arm with her three best buds. Granted, she’s on a dangerous journey, but it’s no more dangerous than leaving the Paris Climate Agreement, ending USAID, rolling back EPA regulations, and starting a war in Iran for no reason.
Dorothy knew song and dance are weapons that can strengthen resolve, remind us of our values, and focus us on the massive good out there. Singing demonstrates unity as we unite with lyrics, chords, tempo, and rhythms. Singing binds us together in peace, goodwill, and beauty. When Oz’s Glinda sings, “Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You are” in Munchkinland can’t you envision that’s she’s talking about hope? Recent major decisions by our federal government make me envision a cabinet meeting where our leaders jump up and dance Gangnam Style as they belt out another song from the movie, “If I Only Had a Brain.”
Barbs, bombs, and bluster keep coming. We should keep coming, too. Keep talking. Unlike the cowardly lion in the movie, if I were king of the forest I’d remind us all of miraculous positive changes the nations of this world make happen. From 1945 to 1952 U.S. occupying forces turned the warmongering imperialist Japan into a democracy banned from using war to settle international disputes, giving women the right to vote, and breaking up giant farming monopolies. In 1945 Germany was in complete ruin. Twenty years later Germany was transformed into Europe’s economic powerhouse. And who foresaw the huge victory for freedom we witnessed in 1989 with the fall of the Berlin Wall? Great positive change comes not on our schedule but through our efforts when we stand up to aggressors with diplomacy, democracy, action, and policies that advance us all.
Early in the movie Dorothy wonders if there’s a place where we never get in trouble. No. Later she tells the cowardly lion that the wizard will fix everything. No. But somewhere over the ego, skies are blue and the dreams that we dare to dream really can come true.
Chris Amorosino lives in the Unionville section of Farmington.