The world woke up as a very different place on Wednesday morning.
I woke up as a white man who will be on the edge of old age when the next presidential election comes around. My rights haven’t been and likely won’t be curtailed. I won’t have to wonder if I’m being profiled. I won’t have to wonder about health decisions that impact my reproductive rights. My marriage will not be threatened by legislation.
Yet I am consumed with concern for what this means for others. That is how we should all be.
When I walk campus and I see young people, I wonder what message we’re sending the young women of this country. And it is not only about reproductive rights. It is about a very different vision of the role of women in society.
In recent years, we’ve arrived at a time when politics never takes a rest. For some, politics is about always looking toward the next chance to grab and amass more power.
But that’s what we should expect in a world where we define ourselves by who we voted for. Used to be you slapped a bumper sticker on your car for the candidate you wanted and, win or lose, when the election was over you took it off and moved on. Those days are over.
So, what of America? What becomes of this nation?
The true threat to the future of this country is not one man. The true threat is if people of goodwill and good conscience do nothing. Even when you feel like your shout is but a whisper amid the howling tempest, you must continue to shout. Even when the man who wins eschews grace and governs in a way that breeds resentment.
It is easy to fall into apathy and hate. It is easy to characterize anyone who supported this man as a misogynist or a racist or a redneck from some small town in flyover country. While it is easy to be taken in by a slogan that harkens back to some overly mythologized era of American history, it is also easy to be bitter toward that mythology.
Over the long arc of history, bitterness, apathy, fear and hate do not win. Vengeance and grievance politics are not the best of America.
Amid a Civil War that was tearing this country apart, Abraham Lincoln used his second inaugural address to talk of an eventual healing and of binding the people of the nation to one another.
That message of unity and healing will not come from Washington. It must come to Washington. All of us must look at one another not with an eye of judgment and mistrust, but rather with a mutual respect no matter how much we may differ in outlook and appearance.
We must come together in a way that will have to defy the naysayers even if the people holding the reins of power continue to sow division.
They want to see anger in the face of a setback. What they do not want is a calm steely determination to build amid temporary adversity and a determination to tear down.
The greatness of America isn’t about how much money we can amass individually without regards to the overall welfare of others in this nation. The greatness of America is not found in settling scores or screaming in each other’s faces.
The greatness of America is allegiance to one and only one flag. And that flag has only red and white stripes, and fifty stars on a blue field. There is no name on the flag we should fly.
The greatness of America is found in the will of people who, even at times when the people in power disrespect and discount the contributions of other people in this society, we rise up to help one another. We get out of our hardened silos of fear fed by disinformation.
Many of us will need that outstretched hand of hope.
There are women who are concerned, not just because of reproductive rights – those nightmares have already arrived as women are denied care and are dying. There were mothers of 20 children in Sandy Hook, Connecticut, who would’ve voted for president for the first time this year. But that dark day represented fears realized in the most awful of ways.
So what should we aspire to?
We are best when we hold our leaders accountable. We must demand a Presidency that serves the rule of law and respects the example of George Washington and John Adams. One stepped away from power willingly. The other accepted the outcome of the election and set a precedent for the peaceful transfer of power—a precedent honored by every president until January of 2021.
Amid this return to a darker vision of America, what do we tell our kids?
We’ve been here before in a time where we vilified certain types of people, where we feared the tainting of “American” blood with the blood of dirty outsiders. We lived in an era when it was all about making as much money as we can with little regard to the plight of others. We lived in an era of isolationism even as the specter of a fascist menace loomed over Europe.
There are challenges to be sure. And those challenges now begin at home.
What you must be sure of is this: Where we can work together to make progress we must do so. Where the attempts at governing run hard against the moral right or the rule of law, we must be steadfast in our resistance.
We must not grow weary, we must not tire even if nine of every 10 of our efforts fall short. Darkness only wins when we relent in our eastward march toward a new dawn.
When the sun comes up on the term of a new president, it is rising as a challenge for us to stand steadfast in our beliefs. Attempts at intimidation will come. But we must not waver on the principles and foundations of American values as we seek places where we can work together.
