"Our Anerican republic will endure only as long as the ideas of th emen who founded it continue dominant"
James Russell Lowell
Republican politicians must stop pandering to the president and his delusional belief he won the 2020 election and begin a process of helping to heal a dangerously divided nation.
As the president-elect said shortly after the final Electoral College votes were announced, it is “time to work together, give each other a chance, and lower the temperature.”
A few suggestions:
President Trump could significantly help the nation and his legacy by publicly recognizing Joe Biden’s victory, urging his millions of followers to respect the results of the election and encouraging them to give President Biden a chance to prove he can “be a President for all Americans.” Sadly, uniting our country and putting the health of our democracy and respect for its institutions ahead of his personal, self-obsessed vanity does not seem to be within his character.
Incoming President Biden could begin building the bridges between Democrat centrists, his party’s progressives, and the moderate and conservative wings of the Republican party by inviting all members of Congress, in small politically-diverse groups, to informal weekly luncheons or dinners at the White House.
Speaker Pelosi and presumptive Senate President McConnell could encourage their members to reach out to those in the “other” party, urging them to remember people can disagree without being disagreeable and that they are all loyal Americans who love our country, not “enemies of the people”.
To help reduce the detrimental “us versus them” mentality all too pervasive in recent years, the Congressional leadership could change the historic and symbolic barrier of the way members of the House and Senate are seated in their respective chambers. Rather than Republicans sitting on one side of the aisle and Democrats on the other, they could devise a plan for random seating which could change periodically, in which a conservative Republican might fine his/her-self seated next to a progressive Democrat.
Given time and familiarity, our elected representatives might come to realize they all care deeply about America, discover they actually agree on some political goals and find their personal lives may have more in common than they might have imagined.
These may seem like overly simplistic solutions to what many politicians and television/cable talking heads try to frame as a complex and insurmountable chasm for their personal financial, political or ego-centric ends.
Whether their bumper stickers read, “Make America Great Again” or “Building Back Better” our elected officials owe it to their constituents to, in Lincoln’s words, “With malice toward none, with charity for all … strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds,” thereby improving the security and lives of all Americans while helping to rebuild broad public faith in our democratic institutions and preserving fabric of our Republic.
To not try should not be an option!
