In short, I'm a moderate American. Shading toward the left in a time where the one-time "conservative" party has careened so far to the political right that it finds itself in a lunatic asylum, my once-middle of the road views are now viewed by some as radically liberal.
Funny. I never saw the New Deal, the Great Society, public education and the like as some sort of socialist takeover of the United States. To me, programs like these are part of the social contract we all agree to as part of a decent, livable society. Civil rights aren't some kind of favor bestowed on the minority by the majority. They're the acceptance that the Constitution and our other founding documents regard all Americans as equals, entitled to the same rights and opportunities. Seems pretty simple to me.
I have a few what might be called "center-right" positions. I support the death penalty. I think that the nation's immigration laws should be effectively and fairly enforced without tearing families apart. I disdain the nitpicking over "politically correct" speech which seems to parse and indict every other term we use. I support a strong national defense and waging war when necessary to defend the nation and its allies.
But the past election, which I view as a flawed and tattered example of what was once a thriving democracy, has proven to me that we've got problems that require action on all of our parts, including me, whose recent contributions to politics have been the occasional Democratic Party meeting, writing a few checks, and trusting that in the end, all will work out well.
But in 2016, it didn't. Yes, as a person who generally (but not always) supports Democratic candidates, I'm used to being ticked off when the GOP candidate wins a presidential election. It usually lasts a few days, and the anger wears off. Like most of us, I wish the new President well and hope for the best. Even after the contested election of 2000, despite my doubts as to the decision of the Supreme Court in "appointing" George Bush, I accepted the outcome and moved on.
This past year, though, something different happened. What I, and many Americans thought was an impossibility, a fluke, a joke, actually came to pass.
We can postulate and hypothesize about what brought about the election of Donald Trump. And countless "pundits" of varying acumen have. As the holder of a degree in political science, I tend to read a lot on the subject, and the rationales for Mrs. Clinton's loss are myriad. The rise of the "angry white working class", identity politics, Russian involvement, voter suppression, a flawed campaign strategy. Those and more are all good excuses, and there's truth to some extent in all of them. But while hemming and hawing are fine up to a point, nothing changes the fact that Trump won enough states to cause a victory in the Electoral College. So he is President.
What makes all this different in my mind is that the nation has possibly elected the worst human being in history to serve as the leader of the free world. Trump is so far below what any reasonable person would expect of their President that it makes one ashamed to be an American. He has shown himself to be amoral, a sexual predator, a narcissistic bully and an exploiter of weaker people. Regardless of one's political views, he is simply unfit to be President by any measure reasonable people would consider fair.
But he is.
So what do we, the majority of Americans, do to stop the damage that this bully, and his neocon allies in the Congress with an agenda that means to strip away the traditions of our government that brought about fairness and some semblance of economic prosperity and human decency to our people, want to do?
I was a tad too young for the Vietnam War and civil rights protests of the 1960s. And there has never been any cause that has stirred me to get out and rally since then. But not this time.
I marched yesterday, not in Washington DC, not even in my home city. My wife and I marched in a Southern city where we found ourselves at the tail end of her business trip. While these protests all over the nation were dubbed "Women's Marches", it wasn't completely accurate. Lots of men, too, and not just millennials or thirty-somethings. Graybeards like me mixed in with hipsters. Old hippies and what we used to call "yuppie" types. Same sex couples, racially mixed families, little kids.
While I can't say I was impressed with a lot of the speakers at the event we attended (some subpar poetry, pedantic speeches), it didn't matter. Just seeing people together, with a common idea, carrying some often funny and pointed signs, meeting, talking, sharing. In pretty crappy weather, too.
There's no big, poignant, dramatic conclusion to this experience. Suffice it to say that I felt a little hope, after a fall and winter of despair, for our country. Like it or not, this is the United States in the 21st century. No longer lily white, Christian, or any other "traditional" meaning of what we've been. Things have changed, and not necessarily for the worse. I'm an older white male, and while I don't accept blame for everything bad in the country, realize that maybe there's some way to alleviate some of it.
We still have the First Amendment, which allows us the freedom to speak our minds, gather peaceably in protest, and publish the truth. That central tenet of the Bill of Rights is certain to be tested, possibly as never before, in the next few years. But it's still there. And we need to exercise that freedom. Loud and often.
From John F. Kennedy, to Ronald Reagan, to Barack Obama, presidents have brought out the optimism, the hope, and the vision of the future this, yes, exceptional nation promises all of us. And I'll be damned if I stand by and let it all be ruined by a usurper who isn't fit to shine those men's shoes. No way.
From looking at the news coverage later, it seemed like I wasn't alone. Millions of people, including 500,000 in Washington, as well as in other countries around the globe, marched.
So I marched yesterday. And I think I will again.
