Election Day! Finished at Last.

           I tuned into NPR this morning, as is my initial habit, thinking that we are returning to the news of the world. It is Election Day! Campaign coverage is at an end. Until I remembered that there is something I like even less than campaign coverage. Election coverage.

          I know I should not dislike election coverage. I should love election coverage, champion election coverage, delight in the democratic process unfolding. But I don’t.

          That is because it feels like I am listening to who is going to save America against the excesses of the other side. Joe Biden is too old and senile. Donald Trump is too self-centered and greedy. And that is just the more polite rhetoric,

          Yes, these are midterms. No presidential election. But the rest of it flows from the top. The Sharks and the Jets are fighting over America. Not for America. Maybe if I really felt that the purpose of one party was more than just stopping the other, things would be different.

          As my media revelation has shown, you can probably tell that I am on the “left” of the political spectrum. But when Donald Trump was running for President, I understood the appeal. He was a political ‘outsider’ bringing in a new sensibility. Now, revealing some more of my political standing, President Trump has greatly increased my appreciation of the political ‘insider’, but that’s another story.

          The thing of it is, I want to be excited about our political process. I want the level of public debate in this country to be elevated. I do not want the elementary school recess name calling that I feel we have gotten instead. I think public civics is something that should be taught, not because we need to make America great again, but because it is the duty of every citizen to understand and live and support what makes America so great.

          If you have had the privilege of going to Disney World, to the World Showcase in Epcot, to the American Pavilion, have you listened to the sound track? Specifically “Golden Dream”, that Spotify credits to Randy Bright and Bob Moline. It is quaint, it is idyllic, it is naïve, but that’s what I want.

          I want those people who want me to vote for them up and down the ticket to tell me their dreams and aspirations for fulfilling that ‘golden dream’ in this country. That is going to be a very painful place to get to. In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson wrote that ‘all men are created equal’.

          At the time, that meant ‘white’, that meant ‘landowning’ to a certain minimum. I know that we built this nation of the backs of so many others. But a Great Nation does not build a façade to hide its past. A Great Nation owns its past, outlives its past, and in each generation expands the foundation of freedom and equality and justice and the Dream so that it encompasses more and more and more people.

          I am a Christian living in a sinful world. I know we are not going to get it perfect, not until Jesus comes again. But I want elections to be about how we build the Dream, not how we have to keep others from tearing it down. Then maybe I will appreciate election coverage.