My emotional and rational selves have been at odds for 2 years. I am angry yet try to remain calm. I try as much as possible to avoid the bombardment of hatred and outrage. It’s impossible. I skim read articles instead of attacking them. I try to calm people down.
I have joined BETTER ANGELS (www.better-angels.org), a group devoted to bringing “red and Blues together to hear each other, have civil discourse, and hopefully spread that idea to those on their political sides. I think I have lost a similar number of friends on either end of the political spectrum because neither group can deal with rational thought. They respond 100% emotionally. I may lose more by saying that. This is what President Trump has done to us.
Until recently I felt that, “This too will pass”. However recent events have changed me. Twelve bombs mailed to various blue leaders, celebrities and journalists. A Synagogue shot up in Pittsburg. This is serious shit. It is too similar to what happened in Bloody Kansas in the 1850’s…just before the Civil War exploded. We must figure out how to stop this.
Tuesday was election day. I was optimistic about a blue wave, not a tsunami, as some overzealous fellow blues keep saying would happen. Yes, Democrats took the House. But they lost Senate seats as well.
The House may continue to be more representative of those areas while the Senate will continue to unequally represent rural states with entire populations less than 2 million (Wyoming, Alaska, Montana, Idaho, Utah, North and South Dakota, Vermont, Delaware, Nebraska, West Virginia, Hawaii, New Hampshire, and Maine). Those 28 senator’s votes far outweigh the 8senators from states with at least 10 times that population (Florida, NY, California and Texas).
Geographic divisions are getting more entrenched. In the 21stcentury the division is between mostly blue urban/ suburban areas and mostly red rural.
Seventy percent of Americans live in areas of 500, 000 or more. Thirty-one cities have populations greater than the entire state of Wyoming (@573,000). The top ten most populous cites each have greater populations than 7 entire states. This is a big divide. Few issues unite them, especially today.
What will be the result of the now Democratically controlled House and now even more Republican controlled Senate? A split Congress will perhaps be more active and effective. Or not, in this highly partisan world. They will have a shot at conversation and compromise, but I doubt it. Urban/Suburban vs rural will be the rule of thumb.
Now add the president to this split. Trump may up as bad as James Buchanan, primarily blamed for the Civil War. His continued stoking of the R/US divide what I prefer to now call Red/Blue has already set off a new civility war.
The celebrity apprentice president will keep doing what he is doing. He will enrage and enflame. He will sign executive orders whether or not they can actually do anything. He will mangle the English language, much to the chagrin of most blues and howls of “Yeah Baby” from many reds. He will continue to be Con-man in Chief. He will continue to divide us. That is the reason he is the least presidential president ever in our history. He will be the worst.
There is nothing wrong with a powerful president, even with their faults. We have many examples of strong presidents; Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Wilson, both Roosevelts, even LBJ, who (even with faults) who made us a better nation. That is very different from this president who sees himself as a president of a family business, to be run as he likes, not the United States, to be run as the Constitution demands.
It is not enough to appeal to one’s base. It is not presidential to purposely use language that separates, that ignites, that leads to violent acts. You must lead “the whole people”.
Even John Adams, President during the extremely contentious late 1790s and during election of 1800, the most controversial of them all said, “The people cannot be too careful in the choice of their presidents.”
Harry Truman, who has risen in the presidential ranks to #6 this past February, has said about presidents, “You can’t divide the country up into sections…and you can’t encourage people’s prejudices. You have to appeal to people’s best instincts, not their worst ones.”
Truman also said, “The country has to awaken every now and then to the fact that the people are responsible for the government they get, and when they elect a man to the presidency who doesn’t take care of the job, they’ve got nobody to blame but themselves.”
We can only blame ourselves. We were not careful enough in 2018. It will be harder now.
As a former history teacher, I tend to take the long view about our crazy time and look back at what was worse: The Civil War. The Great Depression. World Wars 1 and 2. My long view has said we will bounce back, just as we have done in the past. But even my faith has slipped.
I keep trying to hear Lincoln’s pre-Civil War plea,
“We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”
In 1861, that did not happen. It MUST now.
