Respect where respect is due

As I have taken a few hours out of each evening this week to watch the DNC convention, it is not lost on me that several speakers have been Republicans who have chosen to endorse the Democratic nominee for President, Kamala Harris, over their own party's candidate, the failed former President Donald Trump. I am grateful that the audience of Democratic delegates, officials, and fellow travelers have given these folks a warm welcome. I hope we all give them a warm welcome. This evening I listened to the remarks of a Republican mayor from Arizona at the convention endorse Harris. What I saw was a man probably close to my age who has dedicated himself to a party for an entire adult life and found that it was no longer recognizable; that it had become a cult of personalty centered around Trump. To realize that party no longer exists, that the cause one had served had become corrupted by what amounted to a crime syndicate is difficult, to say the least. To have the moral clarity to say "enough is enough" says something about his character. I have personal friends who live in some very rural and "red" parts of the US who broke with Trump either in 2020 or right from the get-go. Believe me when I say that the peer pressure they've experienced to fall back in line was enormous, and that they've withstood that with as much grace as is humanly possible. If the shoe were on the other foot, I really hope I would find the courage to speak out as they have. In the meantime, the Democratic Party is really going to be a big tent party for the foreseeable future. In essence, we have something of a popular front. In response to the threat Trump poses to the hard work our ancestors put into turning the US, factions that would normally steer clear of one another are joining forces instead. Let's face it. We may have our differences, but we have all spent lifetimes pledging allegiance to the same flag, had at least overlapping if not similar cultural experiences and rites of passage, and perhaps enjoy similar shows, sports, entertainers, etc. We may go to similar churches, etc. The main thing is we can agree that there is something bigger than our party affiliations. We have a difficult 11 weeks ahead. The fact that so many of us from sometimes seemingly divergent perspectives have come together as forcefully as we have bodes well. I have reason to be cautiously optimistic.

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