Reaching Across Lines

You may have thought of this, but here is what I am thinking, looking to the future.

In order to break the grip of right wing government, and to push forward toward a genuine display of true representative, inclusive democracy, those of us who live and vote in the so-called “blue states” must begin now to form or to renew our relations with kinfolk, friends, classmates, and any others we know who live across the border in the “red states”. We must begin a serious, mutual dialogue about the real issues facing the USA, and about the vital responsibility we as citizens must assume to preserve the 242 year old, fragile experiment we have inherited.

Following the 1787 Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franklin famously said, in response to the question, “what have we got, a republic or a monarchy”, replied “a republic…if you can keep it”. Now, two hundred and thirty-one years later, we are confronted in a very graphic way with the ominousness of this warning.

Let’s find a way to free ourselves from the false lines of demarcation, be they states or congressional districts, to form active coalitions of resistance to the ideology-driven approach to governing our very diverse nation.  All of us who cherish the long march toward a society that embraces the equality of women, racial minorities, people of different sexual orientations, different religious groups, etc. must now do what we can to make our votes count.  If we continue to act in isolation; if we don’t start sharing information with one another; and if we don’t show concern for our shared plight, we will all have our votes count less, because we are so contained by strictures that limit our collective strength. This is precisely how Trump could win the election and lose the nationwide popular vote; precisely how most people want sensible gun control, for example, but the Congress keeps voting with the NRA; and this is precisely why the party-out-of-power lacks the spine and the fresh, workable ideas to be an effective opposition.

So start now making your list. Who do you know in places where the majority of voters vote differently than you?  Let’s get those email addresses, those cell phone numbers; let’s get connected on social media. Let’s develop the “mother of all networks” of citizens who refuse to recoil and withdraw from the world that is emerging; who refuse to cling, out of fear of the unknown, to a fading past.

And let’s be prepared to speak plainly to one another about the most emotional, hot button issues as a test of whether it is really possible to find common ground. 

There is a battle over jobs. Certainly, we know the problem of jobs, particularly in manufacturing, is not mainly about the exporting of jobs to Mexico and China, but about the growing automation of jobs due to technology.  This is a real challenge which cannot be solved by demagoguery. Old jobs simply are not coming back. Robotics is hear to stay—at least for the foreseeable future. So what will happen to people who are losing their jobs and find it difficult to get a new one?  In this context, why perpetuate the ideology that opposes government help when people truly need it?

There is a lingering battle over abortion rights.  But no law can stop abortion. Law can only make it unlawful to have a safe, medically supervised abortion.  There is likely to be a renewed struggle over gay people’s rights, but gay people are in our midst, in our families, in our houses of worship, in our work places, in our classrooms—inseparable. We are rapidly antagonizing the rest of the world, when our very survival depends upon international cooperation.  And a society that’s bent on ridding itself of all disagreeable types (include immigrants in this analogy) will most certainly do more harm to itself than to “the other”.

Let’s face it, with jet travel, high-tech methods of global communication, all of earth’s inhabitants are being brought closer together every day. Don't be in denial. Martin Luther King, Jr. said it best: “We must learn to live together as brothers (sic), or perish together as fools.”