Four Days and Counting…

Forgive me as I digress from my discussions of our travels to take some time out to articulate my many conundrums I have about the presidential election that is now less than a week away.

I love this country. I remember learning the Pledge of Allegiance when I was in kindergarten. Then I remember in second grade how hard it was to remember to say it the right way when “Under God” was inserted. A few years later the saying of the Lords Prayer was removed from classrooms. Both these changes resulted in a profusion of outcries!

I also remember in about fourth grade when I came home wearing my paper “I like Ike” badge I had made in class. My mom and dad were Democrats and I remember my dad explaining why he thought Stevenson was the better candidate. It was my first exposure to the idea that my vote belonged only to me and there were things to consider besides who others thought was the best candidate. In eighth grade I remember when Allen Murray, a fellow eighth grade student, and I wore our Kennedy for President pins having taped the word IS over the word For. How proud we were!

When I was in high school for some reason I supported Barry Goldwater. (Yep, still don’t know where that came from!) I signed up to knock on doors for him and my father couldn’t believe it. My mother’s reaction was calm but firm. She quietly told my dad that if he wanted to stand on the corner and hand out pamphlets for Johnson he could, but she definitely supported my right to campaign for whomever I wished, no matter how much she disagreed with me. Although all of these experiences took place decades ago. They stick in my memory as though they happened yesterday. Presidential elections are important!

But this year seems so different than previous elections. There is so much at stake. As recently as four years ago, I never worried about the smooth transition of power. Never did I worry that in the United States we would be concerned about people being able to cast their votes safely and without harassment. And as hard as I try I just cannot understand how a person can believe that Donald Trump is a good choice to lead the greatest nation on earth!

Although there is much we Americans may disagree on I still believe there are certain concepts that we all hold. Some of these include:

1 Truth Facts are facts. When did alternative facts become a thing? Who would have ever thought just a few years ago that it would be controversial to believe science? But Trump has made it so. Whether it was handling of the pandemic or climate crises, Donald Trump just throws out whatever comes into his head at the moment. When he complained at the last debate that he was fact checked, I couldn’t believe what I heard. How can it be controversial to fact check? And the Trump campaign keeps talking about taking back America. Taking it back from whom? From the career officials who have dedicated their lives to learning the research in their field? The US economy is returning from Covid better than any other economy in the world. Inflation is lower than it is elsewhere in the world. Unemployment is below 4 percent. I have heard people wherever we’ve traveled throughout the country decry that they don’t have enough people for the jobs. Why aren’t these facts heard?

2 Dignity and Civility On top of not telling the truth. The entire Trump campaign is built on fear and contempt for those who don’t agree with him. Every campaign rally is filled with inflammatory untruths about immigrants, lies about undocumented immigrants voting and collecting social security. And he doesn’t stop at people who are here undocumented; he goes on to attack legal immigrants and in such inflammatory style that he puts their lives in jeopardy. Hateful comments and racist remarks are his modus operandi.

3 Public Service I’ve tried to live my life by a philosophy (and share with our kids) that when we die the world should be a little better place because we’ve lived. When I listen to Donald Trump talk about soldiers being suckers and losers and wondering what was in it for them, it turns my stomach. He makes it abundantly clear that money is the only thing that matters to him; his only icon of success. Many military leaders from General Milly to General Kelley have told us how dangerous a second Trump term would be. For the first time in American history, a candidate’s former vice president, Mike Pence, refuses to endorsement him for a second term. The numbers of people of his own administration who are speaking out is overwhelming!

4 Freedom I remember before Roe v Wade. And I think women live in a far more dangerous country than we did prior to 1973. Yes, abortions were illegal but as a young woman I never feared that I would be denied health care should I have a problematic pregnancy. Two of our four kids are adopted and this colors my personal philosophy of abortion. I can’t imagine a time when abortion would be right for me. But that’s my personal belief and every woman should have the option to decide what is right for her. The Republicans, who have always argued against having government intruding in their lives seem to be just fine with it when it comes to women’s health care. And Trump’s curtailing freedoms, doesn’t stop with women’s reproductive rights. There’s the first amendment. Trump is hell bent on eliminating anyone’s right to protest. He talks about holding those who disagree with him accountable, even to the point of doing away with the US Constitution.

If these concepts weren’t enough on their own to convince me to vote for the Vice President, there was January 6. On that afternoon, I like every other American, was glued to the television watching in horror as an angry mob, at Trump’s direction, tried to overturn the election. We watched as the Capitol Police put their own lives in jeopardy defending the Capitol and the Congressional members and their staffs. We listened in the first days after the coup, to the Trump sycophants including Lindsey Graham say that in spite of liking Trump’s policies, January 6 was too much and to “count him out.” Kevin McCarthy said Trump “bares responsibility” for what happened. How did their memories get so short?

Yesterday I got my hair cut in a small beauty shop in little town West Michigan. I had on a tee shirt that read, “VOTE like Ruth sent you!” While I was waiting a man walked in with a Trump shirt. I’m not sure he saw my shirt but I’m sure the shop owner, who was cutting his hair, did. Soon the two of them began talking about the election. Yep, they agreed, they had both voted. Yep, they both agreed they were worried about the future and what it meant for their kids and grandkids. Yep, they had both seen where the group of “illegals” had been caught trying to vote. (No mention of the specifics, either where they heard it or where it took place.) The shop owner went on to say that he wasn’t against immigrants who were here legally. He just didn’t like it that there were all the “illegals” here who vote and get social security.

I am ashamed to say that I said nothing. Neither of them sounded angry; they were just stating what they believed to be the facts. It finally dawned on me that I don’t believe either of these men belong to a group that would arm themselves or harm others. But I do believe they are part of a very large group of people (and if the polls are to be believed, nearly half of our country) who don’t follow daily news events closely and when they hear bad things being said over and over and over, they believe them. The whole approach of Trump’s campaign is making Americans fear…fear people who don’t look like them, who don’t believe the way they believe. And tell them how these people who they don’t know are here to push them aside in their rush to get ahead.

The thing is from my perspective there is no ceiling on the number of people who can share the American dream. I’m reminded when we our first child came along, we loved him more than we ever thought was imaginable. Then the second one arrived and wow! There was even more love in our family than there had been with just one. And now nearly 50 years after our first son arrived, we are a family of four kids and their spouses and six grandkids and that love has multiplied exponentially. I think the same is true of our country. Contrary to what Trump would have us believe, there is room for everyone; there are jobs for everyone. And the more we get to know each other and what makes us each who we are, the more we are able to see how much we are alike! And we’re all the richer for it!

But there is one requirement of each citizen in order to grow as a country. We each have the responsibility to be informed. We have the responsibility to seek out what is true. I won’t get the quote exactly right, but I recently was inspired by a high schooler who made the comment, “There are four branches of government. The fourth branch is the people!”

Indeed it is and next Tuesday we’ll see what our collective voice says! In the meantime, if anyone can explain to me how a vote for Trump will make Americans’ lives better, I’m listening.