Samain Thanksgiving Moon
Well. The countdown clock is at 0 days and 18 hours as I write this. No more nattering, punditing, analyzing, fearing or hoping. Now it’s time for the votes. For the breathless ring of “We’re calling this state for…” An article posted on Real Clear Politics has it exactly right: “Half of America is about to get gut punched.” If you want to see how the stakes look from the red side, read this short screed from Nevada: It’s Trump or It’s the End of America.
No, it’s not. Even Trump gets elected it’s not the end of America. But. No matter the victor the anguish driving guys who wear the inflammatory t-shirts at Trump rallies will not disappear. One of those t-shirts I saw read: Rope. Tree. Journalist. Some Assembly Required. This is a level of uncivil discourse I would expect at a KKK rally. Oh, wait.
Read a short line somewhere that said re-examination precedes renewal. My hope is that this election is a re-examination of the American political contract, of what it means to be a nation. I’m far away from my anarchist days when I wished for the Balkanization of the states, the U.S. divided into regional countries. We need each other, red and blue, white and black, brown and yellow. We need each other because ours is a country built on an idea, not a people. We become a people only when that idea ties us together.
That idea, flawed as its execution has often been, is that all peoples can come here and become part of us, can become equal to us, can become the future of our country. That all those people must consent to be governed. That that governance should and can be realized through open and free elections.
“Foreigners come here not out of a love for America, but for a love of the cradle-to-grave welfare state that America has become. Eighty percent of them (or higher) will vote Democrat forever more to keep the welfare checks coming. That’s Hillary’s plan.” It’s Trump or it’s the end of America This quote is a direct denial of the central idea behind our experiment. That this nativist idea or something similar seems to be driving the political push for Trump actually reveals the opposite of Mr. Root’s claim.
Love of America comes from all of us boat people, all those whose ancestors sailed here from Europe, even those brought here against their will, all those who walked across the border in search of a better life, all those who flew here from parts of the world in crisis or in economic disarray. That’s all of us with one notable exception: the native americans.
And look at the news as this election day looms ahead. It’s native americans who stand in defense of water and against another pipeline carrying the drug to which we are well and truly addicted: oil. In other words even the peoples who have suffered the most as this country grew use its political system, its history of protest and the power of individuals when collected together. This is the America I love. The one we need to protect with our votes and our continued alertness over the next four years.
