In Unity There Is Something Better
What happens now?
If recent political history is a guide, the next campaign could begin tomorrow. Don’t scream, face it. And then consider the possibility that there is a better way. From Spokane city politics to the perpetual partisan spin machines in Washington, D.C., we Americans have changed representative government into a blood sport, one that creates suspicion, resentment, division, combat.
No question about it, we Americans disagree about some important things. Our differences run deep and are honestly held. They are rooted in our different backgrounds. Male and female, urban and rural, religious and nonreligious, black and white, rich and poor, state and federal, entrepreneurs and regulators, east and west, north and south …
Now that we have reminded each other that we differ and care about the differences - no one, this week, could say that voting doesn’t matter or that politics is boring - what happens now?
Once, our differences flared not only in words but in cannon fire. In his second Inaugural Address Abraham Lincoln voiced an ethic still useful today: “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”
Our differences seem modest alongside those of Lincoln’s day.
But today’s controversies need resolution, too.
The next president, whoever that turns out to be, needs to govern states and voters who did not support him. Needs to fix Social Security and Medicare, not squawk about them.
In Idaho, the Republican monoculture needs to avoid the pitfall of arrogance and consider the valid concerns of those who cry out for better schools, safer roads and environmental stewardship.
In Washington state, the governor and Legislature may at last have power to fix transportation and design a social services agency for the post-welfare era. In addition, as cities and counties scramble to save services in the wake of yet another initiative-imposed tax restriction, state leaders have an urgent duty to balance, once again, the way tax revenue is distributed.
In Spokane, Mayor-elect John Powers and Council President-elect Rob Higgins stand before a bruised and divided city - one that rejected last year’s leaders, rejected this year’s leaders and now needs to join in the creation of something new. Powers inspired voters with a call to settle old controversies, embrace the disenfranchised and create a forward-looking community that welcomes jobs and business. He can’t do it alone and, like all of Tuesday’s winners, can’t do it at all unless we heed Lincoln’s words.