In the wake of our presidential election, we all need to take a deep breath as we come to grips with what just happened.
If we continue to escalate the hate, mistrust and anger that have become so much a part of our political culture, we are well on our way to the destruction of our democratic republic. We need to step back, cool off and turn down the heat.
We are all in the same boat; we sink or sail on together. The greatness of our nation is the sum of our collective will. We must respect and listen to one another.
Everyone I know on each side of this election is decent and respectable.
We need progressives to ensure that we keep pace with a constantly changing world.
We need conservatives to ride the brake into the curves, to question and caution change.
We need liberals to ensure that we do it with compassion and moral integrity.
These mind-sets are fundamentally different from one another and will never completely agree, but our greatness comes from the attempt to forge a consensus and seek the overlaps rather than the differences in our visions. We have to work together to maintain liberty and justice for all.
Let’s put the “united” back in United States.
I don’t mean we have to approve the new president’s actions. I do mean that we have to reach across the gulf and unite with each other for our common good.
Roger Slagle,
Sequim