We all win - and now the real work starts

I’m celebrating the win. And I’m grateful that what i feel was a cancer in our executive branch will be removed.

But I’m also very aware, without wanting to spoil the party, that we are far from at least 25% of our fellow Americans/

We have so much work to do. How do you get folks to understand what was being promoted in conservative America is not the hallmarks of their institution.

My Grandfather was a Republican. He was a fiscal conservative and socially moderate/conservative. He was a compassionate man, who donated his service at times, fought for his country and the to rid the world of Nazi’s, to make people’s lives better.

But my Grandfather NEVER said “Me First”. He never looked at the rest of the world and shrugged of their problems as something he had no interest in. He would never endorse the confinement of immigrants - or the turning away of them - he immigrated to this country during the Russian revolution and taught himself to speak, put himself through medical school and got his citizenship.

He was anti-fascist and anti-communist, but he was not opposed to social responsibility. He did believe in hard work, but he lived through the depression too. 

The modern conservative has been turned into a tool of the rich. To fight against public education. To fight against socially responsible government and businesses being held accountable as members of our community and this country. They’ve been taught that taxes are more evil than human suffering - that human rights only belong to conservatives. They’ve been taught that the separation of church and state is somehow an injustice to religion, instead of allowing all to worship as they see fit (as long as they don’t impose their beliefs on others). They’ve been taught that black people should be quiet and well behaved while it’s ok for a white man to take their rifle or handguns into the supermarket. 

We need to get back to an understanding of how to live together in this melting pot, which I fundamentally believe is who we really are - and in fact is a source of our strength and promise as a country. We all need to get ther with the understanding;

• Racism is not an opinion. It’s a belief and a flaw.
• The human treatment of everyone (citizens and non-citizens) is a fundamental right.
• That regardless of your age, your sex, your sexual preference, your gender identity, you have the right to pursue life and love. 
• That our government needs to be a balance of all of us and not this polarized shitshow, where only huge campaign donors get legislation.

This is our work now. This is the harder part - getting us back to a reasonable place, not this me-first bullshit. We can thrive together - all of us - if we can put greed aside.