It’s almost 10 pm EST on election night. We’re getting down to the wire. Projections are rolling in at a frenetic pace and the electoral map is blue and red with fewer and fewer states left to call. It’s time to talk about what happens next.
I’m purposely starting this conversation without knowing who our next president will be because what I’m about to say is equally true whether we have President McCain or President Obama. I’m talking about how are we going to become one nation again? How are we ever going to become one nation that is some shade of purple rather than two nations divided by a fence of party colors?
I am 47 years old and this has been the most intense, heated, angry campaign I’ve ever experienced – and I’m not just talking about the candidates or their attack ads: I’m talking about the citizenry! Americans are vehement in their support of one candidate and their hatred of the other. This election year people on the red and blue sides of the fence seem to really believe that one would have to be a complete idiot to vote for the other’s candidate. I would love to point fingers here, but even I have had to come to terms with my own feelings of intense judgment toward those on the other side. I’ve caught myself thinking things like, “This guy is an idiot. How can anybody think he’d make a good president?” “This guy isn’t even remotely intelligent. Do people honestly think he can fix the economy?” “This guy’s vice presidential pick is ridiculous, irresponsible even! If anybody votes for him now, that voter would HAVE to be insane!”
So many of us have gotten sucked into this divisive, disrespectful, and arrogant thinking. Just listen to the whispered conversations within your party friends. And so I return to my opening question – what happens next? How do we come out of this civil war mindset and begin to rebuild a unified America?
In one sense, the rebuilding will start with the winning candidate and his advisors. The new president will have to reach out and reach across in ways that go beyond gracious acceptance speeches and cordial, conciliatory phone calls. I believe the new President of the United States will need to appoint key leaders from the other party to significant cabinet posts - not mere tokenism but genuine power sharing. Our new president will also have to be a true listener, one who is more interested in hearing and considering the views of others than in steamrolling ahead with his own agenda. There may even need to be a new kind of meeting – gathering the very best minds from all perspectives around a huge round table, where everyone has equal status.
But our nation is far too divided to expect a single executive with a collaborative leadership style to reunite us. The citizenry is going to have to step up to this vital challenge too. The winning side of this particular election cannot and must not gloat. The losing side must not make excuses or blame the media. We need to realize what is at stake and step up to a new kind of citizenship, a mutual respect for one another and our interdependence, an awareness that listening is probably more valuable right now than talking. We’ve got to exercise this new kind of citizenship in our churches and in our school boards. We’ve got to do it in our neighborhood associations and even at our dinner tables.
Our nation is at a crossroads, and no matter which party prevails in this particular election, the real challenge will not have been winning an election. It will be to unify this once great nation both with itself and with this global, highly interdependent world in which we our situated.
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Eloise Anna Jones
A Reader at 8 months!
papa and Weezie
it doesn't get any better than this!
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2 comments:
Toby, well said. May your tribe increase - it's vital that our nation comes together with a new purpose. The world surely needs it, even as we do. Keep up the good blogging.
I think what has struck me most about life post-election is how clear it has become that the hope so many of us worked to see win now needs to be the same hope that becomes healing-- from individual relationships to communities to our country. The bottom line is that we want change, not for ourselves, but for the good of the whole. The only way we are going to get there is to come together as neighbors, to cross the political aisles that have become front lawns and store fronts in our own towns. We need to help the healing happen from the center-- the individual-- so that it can ripple on out into the country, and hopefully, the world. I had a conversation the other day with someone who voted for McCain. It was a small business owner, very afraid that under President-Elect Obama, they would be taxes more and would have to pay health care for employees-- when they themselves cannot afford coverage. I saw the tears and heard the fear and realized that the next step for me-- someone who worked and voted for Obama's campaign-- was to simply say, "my vote was cast because I believe that Obama's plans will help, and not hurt, you. And I am going to do all the work I can to make sure that happens." It was a simple exchange, really, but it took us both out of our ideology and allowed us to both experience an understanding of where we were coming from...these conversations are just the beginning. Now is no time to celebrate a "victory" or to cry "yes we did..." it is a time to roll up our sleeves and work for real change, together.
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