Well, the votes are in and the campaigns are over. What happens next?
I remember standing down on Broad Street on V-J Day, fiercely waving my little flag with 48 stars on the field of blue. Everyone in the town was so excited. We were so proud of our country that we got hoarse from shouting. Patriotism bubbled through our blood.
Today, those days are a distant memory. I suspect that the abysmal ratings experienced by our current President are in large part due to the fact that he abused the good will of the country and defined patriotism as loyalty to his particular agenda. That agenda was never developed with a broad consensus. Any questioning was characterized as unpatriotic. Instead, a closed-door, siege mentality seemed to reign. His definition of patriotism, i.e. support anything I ask for, is an unfortunate reminder that “power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
Hopefully, this new President will demand patriotism of us all. How he defines it, however, will be critical. So far, his words seem to strike the right cord for many people. But his most serious initial challenge will be to defeat the spirit of partisanship that has infected our land. In my own judgment, partisanship has become the greatest threat to patriotism today.
Partisanship is arrogant, deaf, and divisive. It strikes at the heart of the Union. It breeds vindictiveness and contempt. It doesn’t show respect. Worse, it doesn’t even listen. It concentrates on keeping score and getting even. It has infected Washington to the point where the People it supposedly represents have developed a fundamental lack of trust in its institutions and its members.
We, the People, are hungry for fairness, decency, thoughtfulness, and cooperation. We want to believe again and feel proud. We want to feel that our country, and our individual districts and states, are being fairly represented. The particular party involved has to take a back seat. There is too much serious work to be done to allow time for “party games.”
This new President-elect is saying all the right words about partisanship. But politics, as we all know, can be a dirty business. Hopefully, he will be able to lead us back from party-first to country-first. He deserves our support to achieve that. If he strays from that, he deserves our honest questions.