In the coming final weeks of 2020, the end of one era transitions to the beginning of a new one as President-elect Joe Biden takes office.
For the sake of transparency, I voted for Biden, but not because he was a Democrat because I’m not a registered member of the Democratic Party. Nor am I a Republican. I voted for him because he was the better of the two candidates. I am from the old school of collective decency and common sense. It is collective decency that allows us to treat with respect even those whose views we do not hold. It is collective decency that constantly guides my actions based on a single question I ask repeatedly throughout the day: What is best for the vast majority of us?
Then there’s common sense. Common sense these days seems highly debatable. But it shouldn’t be. Common sense is based on an average of collective thought; in other words, the simple question to ask is, “What make sense to the average person?”
When you combine collective decency and common sense there are several interesting things that arise regarding the new incoming President of the United States:
First, this is not a time to gloat.
You will see hard-core Democrats go on camera and laugh, cry, and dance in the streets not so much that Biden has won the 2020 election but more so that Trump’s presidency is quickly coming to a close.
Everyone needs to understand that the overwhelming sentiment should not be “I’m right and anyone who supported Trump is wrong,” but rather that all of us can take a collective sigh of relief that this painful election period has concluded. We can take a sigh of relief now because we can return to using science rather than gut instincts to better deal with this crippling pandemic.
Whether you are a Republican or Democrat, the one inescapable fact is that as of today more than 237,000 Americans have died from Covid-19 as this pandemic once again spreads rapidly throughout our nation.
To put that in perspective, that is about 100 times the deaths of the 9/11 attacks.
To put that in perspective, that is 10 times the number of people who died in the American Revolutionary War.
To put that in perspective, it’s approximately the same number of soldiers from both sides combined who died in the American Civil War. And most likely some time in early 2021, the number will eclipse American soldiers who died during World War II.
And all of this has happened in the span of about 10 months.
We can’t even properly mourn because we now have to brace for a brutal winter where the death toll could skyrocket.
We don’t need a Commander-in-Chief right now as much as we need a Commander-in-Peace. Real empathy is nice but substantive action is far better. And so this is not a time to gloat, because the whole purpose of this election was not for Democrats to recapture the White House but rather for our country to stop the destructive course that the current President and his staff have had us on, and to do what we do best when times get tough: rise together to the challenge and excel.
And to do that means there’s no real time nor should there be a desire to gloat. We’re going to be too busy digging ourselves out of the Covid-19 mess that our society is in currently.
Second, it is a time to stop and look inside of ourselves.
Each of us has to look down deep and ask a simple question: Who am I?
If you are scared right now because Biden has won, I’m not going to tell you that you’re wrong. The reality is that there’s a lot of anger out in the streets right now. There is a reason why white supremacists are rising rapidly in number. There is a reason why we’ve seen the big surge of peaceful protests turned violent during the past few months.
We are not homogenous, and so not matter how good things might be, there will always be a group of Americans who are angry and looking to stir up trouble somewhere, no matter how great things actually are.
Maybe you are a white Republican who has listened to Trump and his staff, and you’ve found something in their words that resonates within you. Maybe your family has legally lived in the U.S. for generations and you are currently struggling and feeling like you don’t have as much access to help as those who have recently arrived in this country and seem to be given a lot.
I know your concerns because many of you who are my friends. And there are a lot of unknowns about the future. But the one thing I know is that many of my friends are ardent Trump supporters AND they are good people.
And the constant truth about good people is that when they take the time to stop, put aside their emotions, and think about a problem, they usually want to do what is best for the collective good.
For example, many believed Trump when he put forth that most illegal immigrants crossing the southern U.S. border are “murderers and rapists.” It’s so easy to believe because of the occasional stories in the news about some illegal alien committing a crime in the U.S. But it’s just not true and the statistics don’t support Trump’s accusations. But the point is that many stood by Trump and his desire to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border because they thought they were doing what was best for the collective good of their fellow Americans. The point is that it would be easy to paint people who support building the border wall as racists, but I’ve talked with enough of them to know that they really feel like they are trying to protect America. What it shows is that their intent is not to hurt but to help. It’s an important thing to remember as we all move forward.
If you look into yourself and find that you are kind and decent, and that you want your neighborhoods to be safe not just for you but for your neighbors, then this is the type of foundation that all Americans can stand on together as we plot out the course for our futures.
The only thing I urge is to do a little research and find out what the truth is. Don’t blindly believe what any one person says. We have the freedom to think and express ourselves, so let’s exercise this freedom as we look inside of ourselves and tap the enormous power of our ability to think independently.
Third, it is the time to be vigilant.
Hate loves instability and conflict. It thrives in these environments. Hate and negative thoughts are guaranteed to arise unless we remain vigilant.
The goal is not to suppress hatred and drive it underground where it will fester and then erupt later. Rather, we should encourage hatred to come to the surface where we can address the internal issues that are driving it.
This is why it would be a mistake for Biden supporters to gloat: you can’t gloat and be vigilant at the same time.
You can’t gloat and be understanding simultaneously.
There are a small group of Americans who just love chaos and violence. They exist to varying degrees in many if not all countries. And what has transpired during the past nearly four years is that they have been given a tacit green light to terrorize all of us. Certain groups of white people have been busy trying to convince decent white Americans that colored people need to be tamed, and that violence against colored people will somehow act as a deterrence to create greater safety when in fact it’s just the opposite: violence against colored people encourages retaliation which creates ever-growing cycles of instability.
We have to guard against generating hatred because ultimately it makes us fearful about life rather than celebrating life. We spend more time looking behind us instead of looking to the future, and in so doing, we miss so many amazing opportunities because our lives become dominated by our fears rather than filled with our dreams.
We can disagree without inciting violence and destruction. We can make major course corrections because we have done so in the past. And above all, we should all understand that people make mistakes. America is still a great nation, and part of that greatness has been built by making mistakes and being vigilant enough to course correct properly.
That is what this 2020 election and the next several years will be about: adjusting course and encouraging people to dream more because they have a deeper faith that our society is being readjusted for the better.
Fourth, it is a time to extend olive branches rather than look for retribution.
After World War II, high-level leaders of Axis countries were captured and punished. They deserved it for the atrocities they committed and the hatred that they promulgated.
But the Allied forces didn’t embark on a mission to destroy the average German or Japanese citizen. In fact, the Allies helped rebuild their adversaries because the leaders realized that a German and Japanese ally is far better than having them as enemies.
We would be wise to follow that example where those in leadership positions who knowingly led this country into this quagmire should be brought to justice. Leaders set the pace, and so they get most of the glory when things go well, and they should get the vast majority of blame when things go badly.
However, the Trump-supporting dairy farmer in Wisconsin, the Trump-supporting dentist in New York, and the Trump-supporting non-mask wearing and screaming person in a Texas supermarket are not the type of leaders who need to be punished. They are not the enemy. They are our neighbors, our relatives, and members of our society.
There will be those on the “winning” side who want all Trump supporters to pay some sort of heavy price for what has transpired these past nearly four years. And they would be mistaken.
Let’s be completely honest, I’ve seen many ardent Democrats who are just as prone to being blinded by certain things as Trump supporters have been by Trump.
And so we need to focus on those areas of commonality because time and time again Americans have shown that when we find our common sense of purpose, no matter what the situation together we can rise to new heights.
Fifth, this is the time to remember what it actual means to be a “more perfect union.”
In the coming years, we will hear increasingly about the Constitution. A lot of this has to do with the Supreme Court and how it will rule on key issues brought before it. In the more immediate future, some may falsely invoke it as a way to sow new conspiracy theories that this 2020 election was somehow “stolen,” and that all sorts of Democratic shenanigans were going on while ballots were being counted.
It’s not true.
Unlike those who now are constantly spouting off some allegation of election misdoing without real proof, the reality is that at any polling station that Democrats and/or Republicans wanted their people watching, they had authorized observers. And the Republican observers have praised the way that ballots were handled and counted in various polling centers.
There is a reason why neither Biden nor Trump could just suddenly have their own hand-chosen observers sitting at the polling station: it would have been viewed as some sort of voter intimidation, which is clearly illegal.
What I am hoping now is that since Trump will no longer be in power, the justices of the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) can let out a collective sigh of relief. It’s hard enough to rule on cases as the highest court in the land. It’s even more difficult when the President is constantly trying to influence SCOTUS rulings by going to social media to let his will be known.
A lot of hard-core Democrats are complaining that Justices Kavanaugh and Barrett are Trump’s lapdogs and are just there to do his bidding. And if he had remained in power, no doubt he would have done his best to influence their decisions so that they benefitted him. It’s worth revisiting Justice Kavanaugh’s emotional opening statement during his Senate confirmation hearing where he laid out his conspiracy theory of those questioning his character and fitness to be a Supreme Court justice as part of an “orchestrated political hit (job)” fueled by “millions of dollars in money from outside left-wing opposition groups.”
To be honest, for someone to feel that way and say it publicly should immediately disqualify them from joining the SCOTUS because it casts some serious doubts about being impartial if some left-leaning group should bring a legitimate grievance to SCOTUS.
However, I am going to refer to later sections of that same speech where he said, “Due process means listening to both sides,” and later while talking about his mother, he said, “Her trademark line was use your common sense, what rings true, what rings false.”
I have been skeptical about Justice Kavanaugh because one thing that is clear to see is that he is a grateful person. And gratitude is a wonderful quality that people don’t practice nearly enough. However, being a Supreme Court justice is one of those unique positions where gratitude should not extend to the person who nominated you for the position. You justices have lifetime appointments, so unless you do something egregiously illegal, you don’t have to worry about anyone firing you. Now that Trump is on his way out, you owe him nothing. But you do owe the American people a lot not just because our taxpayer dollars pay for your generous salaries and for your extremely generous pensions when you retire but also because your role and your duty is to protect the rights of the vast majority of Americans.
We are a nation that until recently has abided by the “rule of law.” And you as the highest court in the land are the true gatekeepers of how justice is viewed not just in America but also around the world.
Your personal beliefs should not be vilified, but only as long as you place them aside and do your best to be impartial when cases come before you.
As much as “due process is about listening to both sides,” it’s even more about thinking deeply about both sides, no matter how much one side may run counter to your own personal beliefs. It is interesting that both Justices Barrett and Kavanaugh are Catholic, a religion which until President John F. Kennedy was used prejudicially to consider someone unfit to hold high office. When you look at the first 190 years of the Supreme Court’s existence, from 1790 to 1980, of the 101 men who served, only six were Catholic and all were on the court at different times to make sure that it was a lone “Catholic seat”.
And now in our current Supreme Court, six of the nine justices are Catholic. What took over 190 years to develop has been equaled in one Supreme Court session after 200 years.
This is worth remembering not because there is a Catholic cabal forming in our government but rather as a reminder that what was once considered for the most part verboten has now achieved mainstream acceptance as the world has become more enlightened. Common sense would dictate that if we put aside all of our implicit and explicit biases, there was always the chance that so many SCOTUS seats would be filled by Catholics just as there is a high chance that they will be filled by members of some other religious or secular group. Who knows, at some point, maybe our society will become enlightened enough to have an Asian or Native American SCOTUS justice.
The point is that a SCOTUS justice might believe that something like gay marriage is against their religion and still vote to preserve the right for it to occur in the U.S. because of our Constitution’s preamble which states that we “establish Justice … and secure the Blessings of Liberty…” And just as Justice has secured “the Blessings of Liberty” for six Catholics to concurrently sit as justices on the highest court of the land not because the creators of the Constitution ordained it to be so but rather because common sense eventually won and said that it should be so. Honorable justices of the Supreme Court, there will be cases which almost every religious fiber of your body will tell you is religiously wrong, but your common sense secular fibers will tell you to vote the other way because preserving the liberties of Americans that do not unjustly deprive other Americans is a pillar of Constitutional justice, and to quote Justice Kavanaugh’s mother, it is “what rings true.”
I’m going to open my mind and put aside my concerns about whether Justices Kavanaugh and Barrett can truly make secular non-religion-based decisions as SCOTUS justices should. And I would urge all Americans to leave them alone and let’s give them some space to do their duty.
In the coming months, I’m sure that there will be certain groups of Americans who will try to be incendiary. There are some Americans who are just always spoiling for a fight regardless of what that fight might be. There are some Americans who will be angry that Trump lost his re-election bid. And despite all the evidence including his own recorded words which he oftentimes would later deny ever uttering, they will still be stuck in the mindset that anything negative about Trump or any clearly obvious lie that he tells is “fake news.”
What I would say to all staunch Trump supporters is that they ask themselves a few questions. First, how many people have they met who are always right and never wrong? Second, if you were forming a company, would you rather get the most experienced people you could hire or not? Third, would you rather have a group of top-notch advisers who were always honest with you, even if that meant they at times openly disagreed with you? Or would you rather have a group of less capable advisers who just told you what you wanted to hear, even if it meant they would rather let you make a terrible mistake instead of telling you the truth and helping you avoid that mistake?
The point to all staunch Trump supporters is the same one I make now to staunch Biden supporters: Charisma should never rule over quality. The only good President is one who brings peace and prosperity to the land.
What Trump did was lurch the country to one end of extremism, and it was great for those who occupied it and had felt ostracized for a long time because for the last four years they’ve been able to stick it to those they felt had brought the country too far to the left. So our country became highly polarized as the executive branch of our government swung heavily to the right. Now we have forces that are threatening this next Administration by wanting dramatic action to swing the country drastically to the left.
The reality is that the extremes in any situation are never fully satisfied because these extremes believe it is their way or the highway. And they can never be fully satisfied in America because we have too many good people who will stand up and fight against such extremism.
Knowing this, I urge all Americans with strong views to take a deep breath and understand that the greatest strength of America is the diversity that is engendered in our great land. It is also this immense diversity which like photons of light need to be harnessed correctly to shine brightest and be most effective.
Just as I’m asking Americans to give SCOTUS justices breathing space, I’m also hoping that a similar consideration will be given to President-elect Biden.
For those on the left who have felt neglected for the past four years, please don’t try to force Biden to satisfy all your demands. If you do, it will lurch the country from one extreme for the past four years to the opposite extreme for the next four, and such rapid swings only serve to destabilize this country.
Successful diversity demands the strong glue of compromise; without it, each unit repels all other units until as Chinua Achebe wisely wrote, “Things fall apart; the center cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.”
And the framers of the Constitution knew that there would be long periods of growing pains for America. This is why in the preamble of the Constitution, they did not talk about forming a “perfect Union” but rather a “more perfect Union.”
America has its flaws and problems, but this country also has incredible generosity, kindness, and inspiration throughout the land. I know because I have spent time in almost every state in the Union, and as an ethnic minority, I’ve been welcomed everywhere far beyond what I ever could have imagined. This doesn’t mean that I haven’t experienced overt racism because I have. But in aggregate the good people of America far outnumber the others, and that’s a reality worth remembering.
We are and always will be evolving, growing, and changing. That is what living entities do. Living entities are always prepared for change because that gives them a competitive advantage for survival. I feel that the framers of our Constitution realized this which is why the goal has never been a static entity such as a “perfect Union” but rather adapting to changing times and ever-seeking to achieve a “more perfect Union.”
It’s worthwhile to post the preamble to the Constitution to remember what we fight for:
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
The final thing to say is that some of you may think that your enemy is the opposite political party. I understand how this came to be. You may think that words don’t matter, but they do. When the President is making highly inflammatory written and spoken statements that are instantly viewed by millions before anyone fact-checks it, it raises the temperatures not just of those who are attacked by the President but also by those who support the President. Such language — especially during a highly stressful time such as the lockdowns because of the Covid-19 pandemic — creates anger and hatred in all sorts of different way. And because this has happened, America has felt palpably unsafe the past few years.
Has Trump at times received unfair criticism. Absolutely. There have been several times where the mainstream media reported Trump as having said something, but when I went back and watched the entire video of what he said, his meaning was misconstrued.
But there have also been far more times where he has outright lied then denied he ever said something despite all of us having seen video of it with our own eyes. He attacks and bullies anyone who even remotely criticizes him. Is this really the type of boss that any of us want?
A big part of leadership is having thick skin. A big part of leadership is taking more than one’s fair share of blame simply because that’s what real leaders do. A big part of leadership is building coalitions among disparate groups so that they don’t just vote together for a single bill but for a series of bills to become laws that benefit Americans of all different strata.
But that has not happened.
And we should put aside all our own preferences and emotions and ask a single key question about how we have felt during this final year of the Trump presidency:
Does America feel more or less safe than four years ago?
It’s just about impossible to honestly say you feel safer, that America feels safer, than it was four years ago. Trump inherited an America that was on an economic upswing and which felt stable, and he managed to destabilize it greatly so that now we are worried about our cities and neighborhoods being under attack. We have to worry about our small businesses being decimated. Many people who used to trust organizations such as the Center for Disease Control now are skeptical.
The time for wishful thinking is over. The time for amateurs running different key organizations within our government is over. We are all tired of this Covid-19 pandemic, and the reality that we all realize is that it is science which will help us prevail against this crippling pathogen. That can only happen when we have stable leadership that allows qualified doctors and researchers to honestly speak about what steps to take.
It’s ironic that so many of our nation’s Covid-19 current hotspots overwhelmingly voted for Trump in the 2020 election. And it’s troubling, because what it indicates is that people were voting based on personality rather than his efficacy in terms of protecting their lives.
There was a time not so long ago when this type of problem would have had bipartisan support to properly fix it. But for the past four years we have endured a President who constantly attacks not just Democrats but also Republicans who have the courage to speak the truth about mistakes which Trump has made. The President of the United States should represent all of us, not just those of us who vote for him. But Trump is someone who divides the world into 2 groups: a) those who constantly profess their love for him, and b) everyone else. And that latter group is viewed as “the enemy.” But that latter group is every bit as American as the former one. It is the reason why Trump has had far less bipartisan support than any other U.S. President in modern history.
In contrast, Joe Biden was elected President in a bipartisan way that hasn’t been seen in any of our lifetimes. Take a look at the hundreds of high-ranking and ultra-loyal Republicans who for the first time in their lives crossed party lines to vote for a Democratic presidential candidate. These are real-life profiles in courage.
If you believe President Trump and his staff, it may seem like the enemy are the Democrats and the liberals who want to defund the police, tax the heck out of everyone, kill our retirement funds, and make America a socialist country. Is there a slice of the American population that truly wants to do that? Yes. That’s the reality. But let’s not forget that these people who are now commonly labeled as “progressives” are doing it not to hurt the rich but rather to do what they feel will help the most number of Americans. And understanding that everyone wants America to be better (even if their plan for how to achieve this is radically different) and that this is the true starting point for this next phase of American history that we will all be witness to and participant of.
But a key thing that President Biden will do to help the healing is not go on Twitter and inflame people. He’s not going to appoint all sorts of unqualified people to high-ranking cabinet positions and make them sign loyalty oaths to him. He understands that he serves the American people, and he’s going to make it clear to those who work with him that they either get on board with this or they won’t be a part of his administration.
When Republicans talk about reducing government and controlling the deficit, I understand why that resonates with so many Americans who think that our bureaucracy is too bloated and that we are mortgaging away the well-being of future generations as the deficit rises precipitously. I support that as well. But Trump demonstrated that he was not the solution. Even prior to Covid-19 and the $2.2 trillion stimulus package, look at how the federal deficit skyrocketed during Trump’s watch.
I agree with President Trump that we need to clean out the “swamp” of Washington, D.C. But again, Trump demonstrated that he was not the solution.
This is not really a matter for debate because his administration has racked up 82 criminal indictments (which is almost double that of all presidential administrations combined since Gerald Ford) and 58 criminal convictions (more than all presidential administrations combined since Gerald Ford).
You might try to convince yourself that this is because of what Trump has labeled as “witch hunts” conducted by the liberal left. But how does it explain the 8 guilty pleas (which is almost equal to the combined guilty pleas of officials in every administration since Jimmy Carter) from Trump’s inner circle? People at this level with their high-power lawyers only plead guilty when they’re caught red-handed.
My point is that we should treat all U.S. presidents the same way: let’s not blindly take their word but rather judge them by their actions. We are extremely fortunate to live in a society where people’s ability to express themselves is protected. Our Constitution was developed so we wouldn’t live under authoritarian rule where the government controls every thing we do and think. So, let’s use our ability for independent thought not to take contrarian views just for the sake of being different. That’s as bad as those who blindly believe what others tell them.
Rather, the goal should be for us to use our brains and our logic to call things as they are. Not everything in life is clear-cut, but fortunately a lot of the most important parts of our society are.
Let’s get back to a better place where we understand that the police and military deserve respect for keeping our society safe, and that they in turn have a duty to protect this trust and respect by not defending and protecting those rogue members who defile the uniform.
As enticing as it sounds for “Americans to worry only about America,” such an isolationist policy which at one point in U.S. history had some validity is a recipe for disaster in today’s world. There’s no doubt that we need to do a far better job at protecting our companies’ intellectual property from overseas theft. But Trump has shown why trade tariffs don’t work. The only thing that happens is that you and I have to pay more for things like iPhones and clothing. In this case, China was never paying these tariffs, the average American was and has been paying. And what is the evidence that these tariffs are working? Zero.
America should take care of Americans. And we don’t have to wait for the President of the U.S. or any other big leader to make this happen. Americans have been helping America since the founding of this country. If I see someone drowning in an American river, I’m not going to quiz them about their political affiliation. I’m going to dive in and do my best to save them, and I don’t even really know how to swim. But this type of care and concern for the whole is truly what has made this country such a great place to live.
All Americans have to understand that no American wants to see this country shut down completely. The enemy isn’t liberals or conservatives. The only enemy that matters now is the Covid-19 pandemic because the longer it goes unchecked, the more businesses will go bankrupt and the worse our country will be.
In a weird way, it’s tough to overlook the similarities between current state of the past four years with the American Civil War. As many people have now died from Covid-19 this year as died in the Civil War. I wrote this earlier, but it’s worth repeating. It’s worth repeating because history has an uncanny way of repeating.
The past four years have rocked this country from one contentious issue to another. There have been numerous reports of families broken apart because of members having opposite political leanings. One side fought for one ideal while another staunchly refused to change. And hundreds of thousands of people who shouldn’t have died have now passed away needlessly. Are you seeing the uncanny similarities?
In the end, it was change and compassion which allowed our country to heal from the ravages of the American Civil War, and now similar types of situations have divided our nation and left us as a nation at war not just with ourselves but also with our allies. We don’t need any more divisions but rather unity.
We need to find peace amongst ourselves and devote our collective energies to fighting the Covid-19 pandemic as a tribute to our parents whose main goal is the same as all prior generations: to do what is in our power to ensure that future generations have even more opportunities and a better life than our generation.
This is the time for peace, the time to stop waving political signs and cease screaming at others. What we collectively do together for the betterment of our society will radiate far beyond the geography of this nation. True leaders know that their greatest legacy is leaving the land in better shape than when they arrived.
And to underscore how history has a funny way of repeating, to all my fellow Americans, it is time for change. We are fatigued and weary from the chaos of the past four years, and just as hope now arrives today with the announcement that Joe Biden will become President of the United States in 2.5 months, it’s time to revisit March 4, 1865, just 2.5 months before the end of the Civil War, when President Abraham Lincoln addressed a war-weary land in his second inaugural address and issued wise and hopeful words that are highly relevant now:
“With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle … and to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.”
