I Believe in America

This land is your land, this land is my land...

There is such a dark tension in the air today - and we all know what it is. The US presidential election - the Sword of Damocles that’s been hanging over us for so long - may finally be cut loose…or perhaps not. We’re waiting to see whether we’re the nation we hope we’re in or the one we fear we’re in. Events are getting canceled, businesses are sending out “what to do if civil unrest emerges” communiques, and we’re holding our breath to see what happens.

This isn’t going to be a “here’s how to vote” post. I voted early several weeks ago, and if you know me, it’s not at all hard to guess how I voted. (And if you don’t know me, I can’t imagine why my lone voice would be the thing that tips your decision.)

The challenges we face in the US right now are not solely about a candidate or a party (but they’re not not about that) – they’re areas where our systems aren’t delivering for us what we need them to deliver. But our systems have never worked all that well! The electoral college never worked the way we hoped. We never really engaged with the implications of slavery until we backed ourselves into a corner. There are some Very Important Questions around presidential immunity from prosecution that are irresponsibly vague. But - I want to take a minute to speak up for the American System. Not the constitution; not the tangled web of laws and court decisions - but the underlying behavior that brought my country together and that has continued to bind it together through centuries of drama.

The US has never had the structural advantages of a monoculture. Even two centuries ago when “American” meant “White” and “Northern European” and “Protestant”, there was tremendous division over “which Northern European” and “what kind of Protestant and how much of it”. There were fights over national banks. There were fights over abolition. There were fights over suffrage and workers rights and individual freedoms. And there was never a point when working through any of this got easier. But…

“We the people” isn’t an exclusive statement. It’s not a land boundary, a race, a political ideology. It’s not Blood and Soil, nor is it Coke and Blue Jeans. “We the people” never represented a “true America”. It was a diverse group being willing to unite around a few shared priorities - some notions about liberty, and government by the people as a tool to preserve that - and to continuously realign when those priorities needed to change. It’s not about the “better America” that was, nor the fragmented America that is, but the America we can always hope to make. “We the people” didn’t speak for all the people when it was written, but it can speak for as many as wish to be spoken for.

I’m an optimist, and that has led me into trouble in the past. I’ve made trouble for myself by underestimating the impact of things like the Deepwater Horizon oil spill or the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. As I’ve aged, I’ve learned to not be so quickly dismissive of things that carry the potential for great harm. So my greatest fear on November 5 is not that the wrong candidate will win (though I do feel deep fear there), nor of what consequences will come from this election, but that this election will reveal that I simply don’t understand my country and my neighbors the way I thought I did.

Tomorrow may be a severe test. But tonight, before this Election Day begins, I want to go on the record for America. I believe in America. I believe that my neighbors and friends who vote differently than me love my country too, and I hope they know that my love for my country is as great as theirs. And I hope that whatever comes tomorrow, our love and our hope can outweigh our fear and our despair.