On this election eve I am worried. I’m worried at how divided we’ve become in these United States. I’m worried that we’ll never come together again as a nation. I’m afraid the many problems we will face together, and we truly are physically and geographically together, even if we are of different opinions, will not result in a resolution. If you watch the media or are absorbed into social media, you’ll notice that the extremes of both the Democratic and Republican parties seem to have highjacked many of us moderate, middle of the road political idealists and have pulled us to the fringes of the extreme whether or not we like it. After all, it’s where all the noise and crazies are and it’s what the media seizes upon. It’s click bait. Feeding what they wired our brains for; to listen to the allure of hate, violence and the idiocy that drives it all. That gets the most attention. We are not interested in the stories of love and kindness. It’s our interest in human nature. It’s why we can’t keep our eyes off from a train wreck. A small segment of our political neighbors are making all the noise and we’re listening because we can’t hear anything else.
I hear many say, “I’ve seen nothing like this before...” That may be true. I certainly haven’t, but our history proves that we’ve had it just as bad and maybe even worse, and we survived it and became better for it. World War I and World War II were no picnics. We fought against fascists and thank our God above that we won, or the world would have become a much different place. The United States fought a horrible and bloody civil war and I believe a majority would say the right side won. This was a victory that led to the freeing of slaves, and it had a direct reflection on where our moral compass was leading us. We are not perfect human beings. Our constitution was written without consideration to those people who were owned and enslaved by other humans. It took hundreds of years, but we learned our lessons and, as a result, our constitution was finally amended.
As we go about our lives and we either decide to enter the polling place tomorrow or not, I think it is extremely important to realize that our parents, grandparents and even our great great grandparents had to make the same decision. They faced a world with as much division, hatred, and violence in it as we are dealing with today.
Mostly I’m an optimist, but I also have to be honest with what I’m thinking and feeling about what happens after tomorrow- and it’s not good. I have read, and I have listened to a lot over the last six to ten years and I believe if we were all to enter a time machine and our destination was 2030, we would hear this:
“Elections are no more; they are in our past.”
Now, does this mean that we have lost our moral compass we held tight to during the civil war and the world wars? No, not necessarily. I believe they have highjacked us into going along with the extreme and not enough of us voiced our ideals in the voting booth. Everything we are dealing with is on the ballot, from the economy, crime, social justice and our democratic republic. But when you boil it all down, it all matters. You can’t sacrifice one for another.
We are human and if we drop the compass this time, I’m sure that we’ll get it back. It may not happen for decades, but I absolutely believe that eventually our intrinsic core values will win out.
Whatever the outcome, keep the faith. VOTE!
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