While this space is usually reserved for my trips down memory lane with Mama, my childhood antics on the Dykes Chapel Road, the latest lipstick rage from New York City’s red carpets, or the amazing china pattern I found at the thrift store, today I am wading into a river in which I have not swum before — politics.
Like all of you, sometimes by desire and often because it simply cannot be avoided, I am closely following the 2016 presidential campaign. Don’t worry. I am not about to make an endorsement, not that my opinion would matter much about such things. I’m not even going discuss my own political leanings, in the hope of remaining good friends with the other side. I just want to share one observation and see if the rest of you have noticed.
Republicans are under fire, not from Democrats, but from other Republicans. Democrats are taking the heat, not from Republicans, but from other Democrats. Oh, I know this always happens to some degree with each candidate trying to establish what makes him or her different from the pack, all perfectly normal. What is not normal is such extreme polarization within the parties, and my theory is that this gulf reflects the divide within the country.
Americans are appalled and disheartened by the divisiveness in Washington, the inability of our political structure to get anything done because one side continuously blocks the other. There’s a new book out, and while I have not read it yet, it’s on my list. Former Senate leaders Trent Lott and Ted Daschle never agreed on much philosophically, but they represent an era of compromise and are apparently sharing their ideas in “Crisis Point: Why We Must — And How We Can — Overcome Our Broken Politics in Washington and Across America.” Like them or don’t like them, but these men used the political process to get things done, not just to obstruct everything the other side tried to do.
The “establishment” Republicans, as they are being called, have been dominated this season by constantly waiting for the Trump card to be played, while the “establishment” Democrat, as many call Hillary Clinton, is “feeling the Bern” of Bernie Sanders who positions himself further to the left than Clinton’s base. While it’s too soon to know if Trump or Sanders will gain the nominations of their parties, this much they have taught us and their opponents: Neither Democrats nor Republicans are happy with the status quo in this country or even within their own parties.
So as I prepare next week to move back to my more comfortable topics of lemonade and fashionable ladies, tea cakes and Mama-isms, I ask: What’s the message in America’s current political discourse? I think whether it blows from left or right, it’s simple: Like Fannie Lou Hamer famously said about another time in history, we are sick and tired of being sick and tired.
We are all Americans, and we all have in common a belief that the elected leaders of this nation can and should do better.
Contact former Columbus resident David Creel at [email protected].
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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