“A Tropical Bird” mixed media by Erik Kaye, copyright 2016

“A Tropical Bird” by Erik Kaye, copyright 2016

It’s our fault we let these culture wars go on this long. Taking Our Country Back, then the other side takes their country back, then we take it back again, this can’t go on. We say that we’re willing to find common ground but they’re not, and then they say something equivalent about us. There is no excuse anymore for not finding “common ground” or whatever concept works better. Though it may be too late, we need to start talking about another approach.

To Trump’s winning constituency, we shoved Roe v. Wade down their throats, we shoved Brown vs. the Board of Education down their throats, same sex marriage, Black President, gun reforms, Obamacare. Now we tried to force them to follow a lady President and that was too much. We never listen to them. I find it hard to, frankly, but we must, and figure out to get them to listen to us. Or maybe we don’t get them to listen to us. Did we really think we were going to keep them from ever having the White House again? That kind of initiative always blows up on us. And on them too. Dems take back the house and Senate in 2018, politics as usual. But that’s not good enough anymore. We need to become one country.

Editor’s Note: I agree with Erik–the people in the USA need to learn how to learn how to understand and reach out to each other in a loving way rather than allow ourselves to be polarized by fear mongers on either side. Racism, sexism, homophobia etc. only gets really bad when enough people get left out of the equation, which is what has happened. The truth is however that almost no one is doing that well economically except for the rich. We are almost all getting our pocket books wrung inside out just to pay for basic necessities. Our whole system seems to be eating itself these days. I am seeing a resurrection of the Occupy Movement and attempts to reach out to help and include the poor near Portland. I wouldn’t be surprised if this isn’t starting to happen elsewhere, particularly after Bernie Sanders made his speech suggesting a tactic like that to them. This is a good beginning.