Healing Begins November 9
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This election has evolved into a dangerous aberration, a tragedy, and one that I hope we will be able to put behind us in due time.
Without some unforeseen event of great magnitude, it would appear that our Nation will elect its first woman President on November 8. For those of us who will find great joy and absolute relief in such an historic outcome, I offer certain words of caution to the probable victors regarding the nature of our proposed celebration.
The Republican Party nominated a totally unqualified, ruthless, deceitful, and dangerous man to run for President in 2016, and there will be a great deal of soul searching and finger pointing in GOP circles in the aftermath of the contest. Republicans must soon begin the necessary process of recovering and repairing their hijacked Party. In the mean time, we must all remember that in the course of winning the nomination Trump garnered 14 million primary votes, and on November 8 he will likely get tens of millions of votes and carry several States while still losing the election.
His supporters have been often characterized as poorly educated white people who are driven by ignorance, hatred, racism, bigotry, and fear. While much of that is certainly true, I think that the driving force behind Trump's movement is fear and desperation on the part of millions of low information voters who see their future and their fortunes fading in a fast changing country and global economy that they are no longer equipped to understand. They don't believe that they have had a place at the table of national discourse, and there is some truth in that.
It is self evident to me that the past 40 years has witnessed the hollowing out of the middle class and the creation of a one percent oligarchy that owns and controls well over 1/2 of the nation's wealth. This condition must be corrected if our system is to improve and endure. The people who have been victimized most by these developments include all types and classes of citizens, including racial minorities and many of those very same people who have ironically cast their lot with Donald Trump!
On the morning of November 9 many millions of our people who signed on with this "national disgrace and international pariah"(Colin Powell's words) will awaken angry, confused, alienated, and completely convinced that they have been the victims of a "rigged election." Trump has already laid the foundation for that belief, which is hideously dangerous and unpatriotic.
How the victors respond to the election outcome may well determine the effectiveness of the new Administration in addressing America's urgent and pressing problems.
Hillary Clinton's victory speech must demonstrate humility, and be generous in tone and tenor to those who are angered or disappointed with the election result. It must demonstrate her ability to "feel the pain" of the defeated millions, and must be aimed squarely at healing the breach that separates Americans from one another at this critical moment in time.
I would hope that before she is inaugurated the Clinton campaign would reintroduce a White House Hotline like the one we formed for Bill Clinton in 1992 consisting of trained volunteers working toll free phone banks open to any American in behalf of the new President Elect. The Hotline volunteers would be trained to deal compassionately with the fears, the anger, and often misplaced points of view engendered by this election, and even hostile callers would receive a written note from the President-Elect thanking the caller for their communication.
Hillary Clinton, if elected, will be called to be the President of all of our people during a time of great pain and division in our history. Prepared by years of extraordinary public service, tempered by past defeat and disappointment, and drawing on her experience as a mother and grandmother, I am completely convinced that she is absolutely capable of fulfilling that task. With the help and participation of citizens of good will, I believe that she will succeed in doing just that.
The healing process will not be an easy thing. As we seek to restore national unity and consensus we would all be well advised to recall the poetic words in the last paragraph of Abraham Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address:
"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." March 4, 1865
P.S. Please tell any of your friends who may be flirting with the idea of supporting third party candidates that this season is more of a national emergency than a traditional election. We don't have the luxury in 2016 of wasting votes on single digit protests and the very real possibility of creating another 2000 style calamity.
Dan Rupli is an attorney, and political gadabout. To reach him, email rupli@aol.com
