It never was anyway

For the past eight years, I have listened to people on the right complain "I want my America back".  This morning, for the first time, I read a comment from the left stating "This is not my America anymore".

What I'm about to say may offend some people.  It may make some people really angry.

But I'm going to say it anyway.

It never was "your America".

It was always "our America".

And therein lies the problem.

Anything that is "ours" ; anything that belongs to the many, is going to be problematic.

It will be rent with strife and disagreement.

It will always be populated by those who feel it is working for them, and for those who feel abandoned by it.

I am by no means saying that it is illegitimate that many people are frightened by the very real, frightening, and negative consequences that the results of this election could have on their lives.

Fear is a very legitimate emotion for many right now.

What I am saying, however; is that just as all emotion is real, all fear is real.

And even when one person believes another person's emotion or fear is not legitimate, they are always wrong.

Because all emotion, and all fear is legitimate.  I don't have to understand where your fear comes from to understand you are afraid.

So the people that say they were afraid of what would happen if a different candidate won are just as legitimate in their fear as those who are now afraid.

And working from a place of fear is never good for anyone.  Because fear overrides logic, and fear overrides the ability to mount a logical argument.

So those of us who are not afraid at a visceral level about the personal impact this result could have must remain calm in the face of reality, and mount the campaign to protect those who need our protection.

And we have to calm the rhetoric as much as we can.  Because fear is paralyzing, so stoking the fear is creating more paralysis.

I believe that as long as anyone is worried about "their" America, we will never move forward.

It is our America.  And we all have to accept that sustaining democracy is a lot like making sausage, it is an ugly, messy process.  And just like the product at the end of the sausage making can be a very good product, so can the result of our ugly , messy democracy be a good product.

But we have to stay with it even when it is ugly.

One of the hardest things in the world is to accept that you will never understand someone else's motivation for the things that they do and say.

You may be fortunate to have some very self-aware people in your world that can tell you their motivation, but you can never know a person's motivation unless they tell you.

So deciding anything about the people that voted differently from you is not sound.  Unless you know them, and they are a self-aware person, and they told you their reasons for voting the way they did, you don't know why.

And we can't have the messy conversations we need to have to move this democracy forward unless we approach each other with respect.

I, like many, have struggled for the past eight years with the obstructionism in Congress and the Senate.  I sincerely believe that the lack of civility in Washington has fed a lack of civility in American society.  In order for our democracy to survive, we have to do better.

We have to raise our voices clearly to articulate what we believe in.  If we want a more inclusive, more tolerant, kinder America, we have to model more inclusive, more tolerant and kinder behavior.

We have to listen to, and accept as real the emotions and fears of everyone we talk to.  I know there will be times when I absolutely can't understand where the fear is coming from (like all the people that believed that Obama was going to take their guns away), but I still have to accept that their fear is real to them, and work to understand what can be done so that they no longer have to be afraid.

I don't want this great two hundred and forty year old experiment in representative democracy to go down in flames.  I want America to succeed for all of us, and for the planet. And I truly believe that most Americans feel the same way.

So now comes the hard work of listening to each other, of finding compromise that we can all live with, instead of what we have been seeing for the past eight years, which is both sides digging in and making the distance between us greater.

I know for many, it feels like you are always the one who has to compromise, the one who has to be the adult in the room.  As bizarre as it may sound to you, many who you most vehemently disagree with feel the same way.

So let's stop thinking in terms of "my America".  Let's start talking about a vision of "our America".  An America that is inclusive, and fair, and presents opportunity for everyone.  An America where people don't have to be bankrupted by illness or disability.  An America where a person can get the education they need to get the job they want to buy themselves a good life without a mountain of debt.  An America where we can agree to disagree, and then find a common place where we have all given up some, but none have given up all.  An America that truly believes in the promise of Liberty Island,

"Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

We can do it.  We have done it before.  We just have to roll up our sleeves, commit to the process, and never give up.

And for anyone reading this who is afraid, I am with you.  I have your back.  I will do everything I can to protect you. And I will continue to work for the vision of America that I know many of us share.