This election like all elections will have its jubilant political celebrations and sober concessions. Then the more enduring realities appear. Will winners be magnanimous to the losers, and the losers be gracious in defeat? If they are, they will continue an American political tradition that has facilitated the orderly transfer of power, which has helped this government outlast all others. Transitions test the humaneness and order of governments. When mutual respect among parties of differing views fail, civil unrest, violence and dictatorships often ensue.
But the terms of these transitions also benefit greatly from this same spirit of good will. Times of crisis, like the one we are living through, especially need leaders and their supporters in differing factions to listen to each other and work together. The test for new American leaders is can they broaden the diversity Americans have come to prize to include differing, even opposing, ideas and factions?
They should recognize that in an atmosphere of freedom and mutual respect the best visions surface and the best ideas survive. New ones often emerge from carefully crafted compromises. Reaching such compromises is best modeled by the way delegates of radically different interests and views worked together to declare American independence and write a new constitution for a new nation.
If that process helped us survive and thrive through two centuries, why shouldn’t it help us now?
Redd
Republican former state representative
