The long, often wearisome, cantankerous and negative attack campaigning is now behind us. The people have chosen the President, Senators and Representatives who will represent us in governing this country. We are coming off four years of the various factions of Democrats, Republicans, Progressives, Libertarians and Tea Party striving to mold what the future of this country will look like. Each asserting that that their way is the only way. A “my way or the highway” mentality.
Well we’ve all had our fill of partisan rhetoric and enough talk about who is right and who isn’t. It is a time to face our future together and realize that no one is always right and no one is always wrong. To quote Will Rogers, “I’ve yet to meet someone who couldn’t teach me something”. Good advice, and it is worth heeding It is time for us to learn from each other and to open our minds to the voices of others, voices other than only those we are politically attuned to.
It is obvious that we have financial issues that have to be faced. At the same time there have been many voices proclaiming the importance of the protection of social issues that are the safety net and the protection of many. Each plays an important part of us remaining as the country we say we are and moving forward to strengthening who we are as a nation. It will not be easy. It has become obvious that we need to be doing some nation rebuilding right here. If we study the results of this election we see that there is a strong demographic change taking place and we are now facing a different societal structure.
Women’s voices are now being heard more than ever before. People of color and Latino’s are no longer a second class electorate. The elderly are no longer sitting at home knitting and watching TV. In this past election each was an important element in the election results. Also the elections are no longer being decided only by the large urban areas, but more now by the ever growing diversity of the suburbs. The changes reflect a growing need to start thinking in broader terms of the nation’s needs rather than the myopic views that have been taken for too long by too many.
This is not a time to be getting ones back up or spending time rejoicing. Let us start to work together, selecting from what each party has to offer and uniting it toward solving our problems for the good of the country. Let’s get off this My Way or the Highway road we’ve been on.
I’ll use a quote by the comic strip character Pogo that I’ve used in the past. “We have met the enemy and it is us”. We can do better than that.
Harris Dinkoff
