This is going to be a politics blog post of sorts, but here are three pots of cherry tomatoes I stuck on my back porch a few weeks ago. I had neglected the plants in my fall garden, so these have stunted growth and the tomatoes are tiny, but amazingly the plants are still producing. Out of the eight containers of cherry tomatoes, I picked three that looked like they might survive. These are from Burpee Veranda Red Hybrid tomato seeds and I’ve had more success in my backyard with this type of tomato than any other ones I’ve tried. Hopefully, some plant food and regular watering will help them along.
Now to the politics… Looking at where America is at and somehow believing a highly contentious presidential election year and an election, are going to do a single thing to pull Americans together seems delusional to me. I expect the divides to further deepen in the next year, but that doesn’t mean everything is hopeless..
After giving a lot of thought to our American political divides, first I’d like to give my short take on the 2024 presidential election. The 2024 presidential election can’t fix what’s broken in America.
The divides in our country can’t be healed with a presidential election, that half the country won’t accept as legitimate, and that’s where we’re at. However, I still hold out hope for America and after my quick presidential election take, I’ll explain why I’m still hopeful.
If Biden were to win – Trump supporters would be screaming the election was rigged or stolen. Mayhem would ensue.
If Biden dropped out and some other Dem. candidate won – same thing Trump supporters would be screaming the election was rigged or stolen.
If Trump won – Democrats and liberals would take to the streets with a march that would make the 2016 Women’s March and #Resist look like small fries. They would not accept the election as legitimate.
If DeSantis or Haley were to win the GOP nomination – Trump would not accept that gracefully and he’d set about to attack the GOP primary as rigged or stolen and discourage his supporters from showing up to vote. If either of them won, well, the Trump supporters and Democrats and liberals wouldn’t accept that as legitimate, especially DeSantis, since he’s determined to push back against the left’s “woke” agenda. Even though some leftie mouthpieces aren’t as harsh about Haley now, if she were to win, I just harken back to how Dems and the liberal media ranted about GWB and compared him to Hitler. This delegitimizing elections kicked into high gear in America in 2000, not 2016. The Clinton impeachment scandal and that scorched earth spin war effort (Carville called it going scorched earth) set this delegitimizing and stolen election politics into motion.
Add in all the other corruption into the mix – Trump corruption, Biden corruption, media corruption and seeing how the partisan political corruption has seeped into some of our most important institutions, like those tasked with safeguarding our national security and safety, well, I just don’t see much hope of Washington or politicians changing course and trying to work on unifying America.
However, we’re not hopeless. When people talk about other things, besides politics, usually they can still find some common ground. Although, just about anything can become a contentious political issue these days, we all have the power to try to start changing that. I need to work on moving away from the politics stuff too and especially the politics news. I’ve been trying to wean myself off politics news for a while. Then I’ll get caught up in some hot button political topic and do a bunch of googling, trying to figure it out – like the Twitter Files reporting after a House hearing a week or so ago. I wrote some blog posts and now I’m done with that (for now), because nothing I write about that is going to make a bit of difference. Plus, in the bigger scheme of things, what really matters is our families, our friends, our communities.
The partisan spin information war will continue to blow hot – because a lot of media and politicians get rich and powerful by fueling it. The rest of us just get played for suckers. That’s where the hope comes in. I think that since all the pandemic drama, the protesting dramas and all the never-ending political drama, many Americans long for a return to some sort of normalcy, where people aren’t consumed by political drama constantly. Most Americans also don’t want civil disorder or lawlessness. I still believe most of America wants a return to living where there’s a bit more tolerance and definitely stronger communities. These are things that are within the reach of every community to build, if we start making the effort.
We have the choice to buy into the media-driven and social-media driven drama or we can work at weaning ourselves away from all the hot takes, the endless fearmongering and drama and the steady stream of “Us vs. Them” conspiracy theories that try to drag us down rabbit holes of distrust and division.
My father was a kind and good-natured man. He worked hard, was dedicated to his family, and he was one of those people who never met a stranger. He did watch the news and read the local newspaper every day, but he had no interest whatsoever in politics. He was more interested in local news and what was going on around him, oh, and his garden and yard. He had a gift for getting things to grow. That’s probably a healthier perspective.
Most of these tempest in a teapot “national conversation” stories aren’t accurate or honest reporting, are skewed to advance a political agenda and have no relevance on anything really. There’s an entire class of political/culture punditry that makes locating videos on social media of the most extreme weirdos and then hyping them as representative of “the other side.” There are a lot of people who get rich off of this – on the left and the right.
The demise of local newspapers has also pulled us away from paying close attention to our own communities. Cell phones leave many people living almost every waking minute transfixed on the little screen, and completely oblivious to what’s going on around them. Years ago, I quipped that America could be invaded and taken over and a sizable percentage of the country likely wouldn’t notice, unless it interfered in their cell phone service.
What’s happening right around us is way more important than some “national conversation” topic drummed up for clicks or to feed a political agenda. In any type of emergency situation – what’s going on locally is what we’re all going to need to be paying attention to. If we start working on building even a tiny bit of community around us, before there’s a crisis, well, we’ll be way ahead of the game in trying to weather those storms. We also might get better at bridging divides, one smile and small goodwill gesture at a time.
America is blessed with many natural resources, but one of our most under-utilized is our American spirit. Yes, that American spirit is still alive, if we just dig it out from under the pile of fear and hate-driven news/social media “information” overload. Americans are a people with a do-gooder gene in our national DNA. We pitch in to help other people and even countries, we rush to donate money, resources, and offer a helping hand. We can rekindle the American spirit without any government studies, new laws or government spending. We don’t need politicians for this at all – we can all begin to work on it and pass it on with a smile and lending a helping hand, as we can.
Changing our attitude and rekindling our American spirit doesn’t require some big national movement or setting up some organization or group. Any of us can work on this on our own or within our families or with a few friends or in our communities. Important things in life don’t really start with just a change of heart – it requires taking those first steps to really start. You can think about something for the rest of your life, but until you get up off your butt and start doing, nothing’s going to change.
Rather than looking at everything as Us vs. Them, I’m going to work on looking for tiny bits of common ground with people I disagree with on politics and hot button issues. With Christmas days away, this might be a good thing for many people in America to try.
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