Optimism Through Uncertainty

Regardless of political affiliation, it's hard to disagree that the divisiveness on display in American politics over the past several months has been demoralizing.  Neighbors, friends, family members and others have been pitted against each other based on their presidential preference.  Good people have been labeled racists, fascists, and much worse.  Political rants and discourse have turned into ultimatums: “Agree with me, or never speak to me again.”

I’m not going to spin this as some sort of political issue.  Instead, I just ask that we examine the underlying emotion that has divided our nation so dramatically.  Before you go off and say, “There’s no compromising with racist, misogynistic homophobes” or “Liberalism gave us the failed product of the last eight years,” I ask that we drop the name-calling and oversimplifications.  That’s what got us here in the first place.

Instead, recognize that the presentation on display in Washington isn’t indicative of the democratic and compromising ideals held by the stark majority of Americans.  I still hold that a group of randomly selected citizens could enact better policy than the legislators who spend their lives in the muddy waters of American politics.  When we compromise and listen to one another, big problems start to become much smaller.  Objectivity tends to emerge as the guiding light on common-sense reform.

The global media and major political parties make it seem as if we live in a country with two sub-species of human.  If we close our eyes and our ears, we may just believe it too.

So let’s bask in the words of the ever-wise F. Scott Fitzgerald, who noted, “At eighteen our convictions are hills from which we look; at forty-five they are caves in which we hide.”

Keep climbing my friends.