Tag Archives: Ronald Reagan

My Next President

DSC_0181“In politics, stupidity is not a handicap.” –Napoléon Bonaparte

Hello friend,

“IS THIS THE BEST WE CAN DO???” That is what I keep asking myself as I watch the 2016 Presidential candidates begin to emerge and strut their stuff for the voters. One day it is Donald Trump spouting racist comments that cause the PGA tour to cut ties with him. The next day I see Hillary Clinton’s extremely low poll numbers when it comes to honesty and trustworthiness. Then there is the prospect of Scott Walker, and I think of how many people from Wisconsin I have met who are totally mortified that he is their governor. And, oh my goodness, might Joe Biden, the butt of so many jokes, really run for President? Who will the Republicans and Democrats trot out next: Jeffrey Dahmer or your crazy Aunt Cleo? I am again left scratching my head and wondering, “Is this the best that we can do?”

I know, I know, we are not supposed to talk about religion and politics in polite company, and I am certainly going to offend most people with this post today. But we aren’t talking here. We are just here to get you to think about what makes you tick. When you write about this in your journal, you are writing to yourself, for yourself. Of course you can talk about it with others, but you do that at your own risk. When you journal, you risk nothing. You only gain. You gain clarity and perspective, and you get to hash out potentially unpopular ideas without the prospect of losing friends as a result. It is your Truth, not someone else’s. So yes, go ahead and talk politics. I dare you! But first, hear me out. Maybe I can ruffle your feathers enough to stir up a passionate journal entry or two.

These candidates are killing me! They really are. As a guy who almost never follows current events but has an odd fascination with Presidential politics, I have found myself wondering if I could be more unimpressed by this group. But, you know, it is not really the fault of the candidates themselves. After all, they are just folks who are ambitious enough to want to be President of the United States. That is pretty darn admirable of them, actually. I guess it is the political parties and us—yes, you and I—who are to blame. How did we allow it to get to this point where it is so extremely difficult to uncover a couple of wonderful candidates for the highest office in the land? We should have made it clear to most of these folks long ago that they just weren’t what we are looking for when it comes to our global ambassador. We failed, and now here they are, lined up at our door (or at least our TV sets).

I guess there are some basic things I am looking for out of my next President—some minimum qualifications—regardless of political affiliation. These are the things I want the candidates of the major parties to have so that we can have a fair fight. Let’s start with charisma. We are talking about the leader of the free world here, so this person needs to have that certain something that draws people in. Captivate me! I also want to think my President is both intelligent and wise. I want the person to be able to not only understand the daily security briefing but also be able to make good decisions based on it. I want my President to be likable. Easily likable, so I don’t have to scour through the crabby surface or used-car-salesman surface or arrogant surface or patronizing surface to find some semblance of likable. I also want the main candidates to be on the younger end, frankly. Preferably 40s or 50s, not so much 70s. I know that sounds horribly ageist—and it is—but I am actually not saying it for me. I am really talking about what I think the two big parties would ideally put out there to appeal to the greatest number of voters. Personally, I don’t mind if the President is 65, but I think the candidates have more mass appeal when they enter around the age of the most recent Presidents (Clinton, W Bush, and Obama) rather than the Reagan/HW Bush ages. In this age of celebrity and social media, I really believe that we will see more candidacies that emerge as a wildfire-style movement—I think Obama’s first election will, in the long run, be seen as the first version of this—which is why youth, charisma, and even celebrity may play an increasingly large role in Presidential politics going forward (you think George Clooney couldn’t win an election right now?).   I also think you cannot be seen as an extremist (though both sides like to paint each other as extremist, hopefully you and I can see the truth).

These basic standards of appeal seem so simple, obvious, and easy-to-meet, but look at the candidates emerging. Who meets them? You can answer for yourself. Does Hillary Clinton have likability or age on her side? Does Donald Trump have anything but celebrity—and perhaps charisma—on his? Vice President Biden is in his 70s, which is tough. Bernie Sanders seems too extreme to the left to attract enough people, and I think anyone Tea Party-related has the same problem but from the right. Who remains? The Democrats seem to be out of appealing options, unless Elizabeth Warren could be convinced to join the race. As for the Republicans, maybe the likes of Bobby Jindal, Chris Christie, or Jeb Bush fit the basic standards. I suppose even that answer somewhat depends upon your political leanings.

I definitely have my biases, too. I have told you in previous letters that I am very liberal. I have zero inclination to attach myself to any party, but I admit that the Republican candidates—especially the Tea Party folks—frighten me more than the Democratic candidates. I actually think that Clinton would do a fine job as President, but I also think that the likability factor doesn’t make her a good candidate when we go back to our basic list.

Maybe it is just not possible in this age to find a person that seems at least generally appealing to most people (political views aside). After all, I tend to think President Obama is charismatic, likable, and young enough to appeal to a broad audience. If you look at the levels of hate and vitriol sent in his direction, though, he is clearly not a universal favorite. Maybe W Bush was that way, too. By his second term, the very sound of his voice made my skin crawl—I was very against the wars—but maybe even his most level-headed supporters wondered by everyone didn’t think he was the coolest guy ever. It is quite possible that the low level of respect that we grant even our highest officers today—maybe I was shielded from it growing up in a Republican household in the Reagan/Bush years, but it felt like no one dared to disrespect the President in those days—makes it impossible for us to find some consensus on who would be a generally good leader (political views aside). Nothing is sacred in 2015, and no one is safe from the haters.

Still, I hold out hope that the 2016 election will offer us some candidates from both parties who meet the basic standards. I would love to arrive at Election Day and be excited about the final contenders. I have lived through the elections where neither player excited me—see Bush vs. Gore—or when I was petrified at what might happen if the President died while in office (“Hello, President Palin!”). I think I want what each party wants: to deliver a candidate and running mate who are charismatic, likable, smart, wise, and appealing to a wide range of people. And I really want to spend the months leading up to the election without shouting at CNN, “Is this the best we can do???”

How about you? What is your take on the possibilities for your next President? Open up your journal—the only safe place to talk politics—and make a Wish List. What are the minimum standards on your list? Are they similar to mine, or quite different? How well has your preferred party done at producing candidates that meet those minimum standards? How well do you think the other party has done? Are you ever embarrassed for either party? Do you like it when the other party nominates an obvious dud? Given that no matter who each party nominates, the election is bound to be a close one and could go either way: even though I feel like my side gains a slight edge if the other side’s candidate seems awful, it still always freaks me out that the awful candidate might very well win and I will be stuck with this person as my leader (a recurrence of my Sarah Palin nightmares). Do you think that is the case in this election, with Hillary Clinton as the presumptive nominee for the Democrats despite having some serious popularity and trust issues? Should the average Republican voter be loving this or terrified that, despite these issues, she might be the next President? How open-minded are you about which candidate you will ultimately vote for? Have you picked a favorite yet? Are you open to the idea of a female or Latino or Indian-American President? How much does gender, race, or religion play into your candidate preferences? How much difference do you think is really made by choosing a Republican rather than a Democrat for President, or vice versa? Do you always vote by party, or can a personal quality or an issue sway you? Do you know someone personally—maybe even you—who you think would be a good President? What is it about that person that makes you feel this way? Would you want the job? Why or why not? If you answered “NO” to the job, do you think this is why we have such a shortage of good candidates on both sides? What can we do about that? Leave me a reply and let me know, “Is this the best that we can do?” 

Demand the best,

William

The Fine Line Between Compromise & Cowardice

DSC_0144“Accepting all the good and bad about someone. It’s a great thing to aspire to. The hard part is actually doing it.” –Sarah Dessen, What Happened to Goodbye

Hello friend,

A couple of nights ago, my wife shared with me some wonderful news about one of her oldest, dearest friends. Then she followed it with, “She is just the sweetest person on Earth. It is too bad she is incredibly homophobic.” Huh??? My sensibilities had just been completely offended by such a statement, and my mind started spinning with questions and challenges. How could you call someone “sweet” in one breath and then point out her severe intolerance in the next? How can you claim to be so close with someone who embraces such bigotry and not even challenge her on it? Even more, how can you even be friends with that person? What does that say about you?

These questions were flooding my mind, and I had to take a step back from the situation to keep my blood from boiling. I am probably on the extreme end of the spectrum when it comes to how quickly I am offended by intolerance and bigotry. I am highly sensitive to racism, sexism, classism, and in this case, heterosexism. Thus, I had to fight myself to keep from pouncing on my wife’s statement about her friend’s seemingly contradictory personality traits of sweetness and homophobia.

You see, I hold my wife to a very high standard. She runs a multicultural center and is a highly conscientious and brilliant educator in the field of tolerance and diversity. She has been a shining example for me to follow in the many years we have been together, so the bar is set high regarding the people I expect to find in her inner circle. Thus, even as I was struck a bit sideways by the mere idea of a “sweet homophobe”, I was shaken even more by the fact that this walking contradiction was her dear friend. How could she fraternize with a bigot? Where were her high-minded ideals of tolerance and inclusion? Had they been compromised? Was my wife–this paragon of virtue–actually a spineless coward?

Before I let my idealistic image of my wife crumble in front of my eyes, I needed a reality check. I needed to understand just how glass my own house was before I started throwing stones at hers. I started combing through my mind and my history to dissect my closest relationships. I wanted to know if, and to what degree, I had compromised my own standards to make friends and to keep my loved ones dear to me. Maybe I was spineless, too?

I didn’t have to look far to find examples. My family is the greatest. Of course I love them all, but more than that, I genuinely like and respect each of my siblings and my parents. I very much look forward to every chance we have to get together; these are my favorite times of the year. BUT—there just had to be a “but”—there are definitely things that don’t get talked about for fear of upsetting the applecart. Several years ago at Christmas, I mentioned casually that I was no longer a Christian. BOOM!!!!! It was like a silent bomb went off. No one has spoken about the topic in my presence since. Then there is politics. I grew up in a house that worshiped Ronald Reagan and all things Republican. As far as I can tell, the rest of the gang (and their extended gangs) has remained pretty far—some very far—to the right. I, on the other hand, lean heavily the other way on pretty much everything. So, do we have a dialogue on the important issues of our time and the way our country is going? Heck no! We stay as far away from that as possible. Nobody wants to start a fight or to risk thinking less of someone that is going to be in his life for a long time. Avoiding the conversation keeps everyone from exposing themselves. Our silence keeps the peace. Denial runs deep.

My dearly departed father-in-law wanted nothing to do with his Black daughter dating—much less marrying—a White man. It wasn’t personal–it didn’t matter that I knew him before we even dated and never had a problem with him—the rule was for any White man. He openly denounced the relationship from the start, and carried it to the point of not attending his daughter’s wedding. He was always kind to me when I visited his house after our marriage, and my wife continued to dearly love and even admire him to the day he died. Still, it was tough to wrap my mind around, and despite his friendly actions, I never quite got myself to the point of real comfort around him because I could not untangle the web that could hold such extremes of belief and action. My wife, though hurt by his disapproval, remained as loyal and loving to him as ever.

It reminds me of the way we idolize people and want to see them one way, subconsciously blinding ourselves to the not-so-heroic stuff. We see Christopher Columbus as the brave explorer and discoverer of America, neglecting the land-raping, slave-taking parts. We see Thomas Jefferson as the author of our Constitution, top-tier President, and one of the most brilliant men in our country’s history, conveniently looking right past his history of holding (and having children with) slaves. We see Martin Luther King only as the great Civil Rights champion, ignoring his infidelities. We shield ourselves from the truth in order to make things fit more comfortably in our minds. Caricatures are easier to deal with than complexities. This goes as much for our heroes as for our loved ones.

Is it even possible to have it all one way, though: to see our loved ones as entirely commendable and agreeable, to sit comfortably with everything they do and stand for? As it turns out, human beings—all of us—are complicated creatures. We are not cartoon characters, so plainly hero or villain. No one is completely clean or completely dirty. Despite our greatest efforts to paint each other entirely black or white, it turns out that we are all a big, messy rainbow of grays. If we chose only to love the pure, we would all surely be lonely souls.

So, we do our best. We love those whom our hearts can’t help but love. We love our family members through some cosmic-genetic-magnetic force that pulls us together in that “no-matter-what” way that we can feel but can’t quite explain. We love our friends because we fell in love with their best qualities when we met and now cannot simply choose to fall out; they are residents of our hearts whether we like it or not.

For all of these residents of our heart, we find a way to make peace in our mind. It is a delicate balance of trying to see the good in them without being in total denial of the less savory elements. We become managers of our interactions, chemists desperately trying to avoid a combustible mix. We choose to steer clear of conversations that will explode in our faces, only dealing with certain issues if they are thrown hard at us to the point of inevitability, and even then only briefly and tactfully. We choose our battles.

There is no doubt that it requires a certain level of denial. There are just things we don’t like to think about when it comes to our loved ones. Even more than thinking about it, we definitely avoid actually confronting the offending companion. Be honest, do you really want to have a dialogue—either internally or with the problem person—about your father’s racist comments? Do you want to address your best friend’s homophobia? How about your sister-in-law’s belief that poor people are poor because they are lazy? No, as repulsive as all of these things make us feel inside, there is no doubt that our tendency is to deflect them as best we can, steering instead toward safe harbors of conversation in the service of keeping the peace.

But how much can you swallow—how much can you compromise your principals—before you reach the point where you feel entirely spineless? The answer, of course, is different for everyone. Much, I suppose, depends upon how much we feel like we “need” the relationship (frequency of visits certainly plays a role as well). If we are willing to let it go—obviously not as convenient with family as it is with friends—we may be more willing to take the risk. Sometimes we take the risk because the relationship cannot be let go of (e.g., if you and your sibling have fought and made up a million times before, you might think one more round for a good cause is worth the family drama).

Whatever the justification, it seems that we, more often than not, pretend that our loved ones’ unacceptable views do not exist. We sweep them under the rug. It is, whether conscious or not, a compromise of our beliefs in the service of keeping the relationship. But perhaps it is really much more than a mere compromise. Maybe that is putting a nice face on it. Perhaps it is more accurate to call it cowardice or spinelessness. After all, if you are not sharing your Truth or not addressing your loved one’s Truth for fear of disliking each other, aren’t you living like a coward? It takes a lot of courage to be who you are and accept others for who they are.

That was the one part, in hindsight, that my complicated father-in-law had down. He may have openly disapproved of my relationship with his daughter, but he didn’t shut her out or stop loving her because of it. They both spoke and lived their Truth—and agreed to disagree on how she should live her life—and kept right on loving and admiring each other despite their differences. They were able to meet each other right where they were and accept the other’s beautiful complexity rather than living in denial and pretending everything was wine and roses. Perhaps that is the courage we should all aspire to. Yes, I think I will start there.

What about you? How do you justify spending time with/accepting/loving someone who holds views so antithetical to who you are and what you stand for? Get out your journal and write about your relationship with your loved ones. Which ones can you share your Truth with and fear no drama? Which ones do you not even want to hear their Truth?  How willing are you to challenge someone on their actions or beliefs? Does it make a difference if that belief regards you (e.g. your race, sexuality, politics, etc.)? Are there people you avoid at family gatherings, knowing they will say or do something that will make it hard for you to hold your tongue and keep the peace? What issues are off-limits when you get together with family? Are those issues different when you gather with your friends? Which of your relationships could withstand a challenge like this? Which relationships would crumble? What does the answer to those two questions say about how you should value the relationships in each camp going forward? Maybe you would be doing both parties a favor with a challenge. Is there one relationship in particular in which, if you don’t challenge them soon, you will pass from the point of compromising for the sake of keeping the peace to the point of feeling like a spineless coward for not telling your Truth? Leave me a reply and let me know: Where do you draw the line between compromise and cowardice? 

Surround yourself with Love,

William