The Great Divide
I’m at a loss to understand how I’m someone’s enemy because I’m a liberal. I support civil rights. I want gay men and women to be able to live their lives, be married, and be happy. I want women to have the right to choose their medical care. I want immigration treated as a humanitarian issue with kindness and concern. I want to save the environment for my grandchildren. I want common sense gun laws. I think the poor and homeless among us deserve help, as neighbors. None of this seems hard or particularly threatening. But it is, apparently.
The current Republican candidate for president says I am the enemy within. A force that needs to be dealt with, using the army if necessary. I am to be feared. I am a threat to the country. I am woke. I will open the doors to perversion. I will chase God out of the country. Me, a 78 year old liberal. Wow. That’s some weird power to have at my age. But. Boo! I’m here. When he sends the army to get me, I’ll put on a nice suit, although I’ll probably have to wait until the deportations are done and the minorities are gone, since I’m a white man and relatively powerless to boot.
At the same time, however, I’ve come to realize I view his supporters as the enemy, although I only want to defeat them at the ballot box. We’re on opposite sides of the great divide that runs through this country. We refuse to talk politics with one another and in that space between us grow the brambles of misunderstanding. I don’t know where the solution lies. I’ve already voted. And I’m trying to have civilized conversations with friends on the opposite side of the aisle. So, I’m doing what I can. As with everything else, however, we’ll have to see how it works out come election day.