Country Before Party

"Look, at some point, Democrats have to decide whether they love this country more than they hate this president.  And they have to decide that they want to put the safety and the security and the diplomacy of our country ahead of their own political games. And we're very hopeful that they will."

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders 4/23/18

The Press Secretary made that statement on an episode of Fox & Friends in regard to Democratic opposition to the nomination of now Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to the post in April last year.  And I've been seeing it make the rounds on social media to refer to all kinds of actions by the Democrats.  The latest being the opposition to the declaration of a national emergency for the border wall.

The shoe is on the other foot now, it seems.

Now it is time for Republicans to decide whether they are more loyal to their country or to Donald J. Trump.  With the overreach in power in the declaration of a national emergency.  With continuing revelations regarding his corruption.

Or given the events of this past week, perhaps the better focus is on just one Republican in particular - Senator Lindsey Graham.

Following a unanimous vote in the House, Senator Graham blocked a resolution in the Senate which would make the full Mueller report available to the public.   He used a bit of whataboutism in his justification, objecting when Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer refused to include an amendment that would appoint a special prosecutor to investigate candidate Hilary Clinton.  "Was there two systems of justice in 2016?  One for the Democratic candidate and one for the Republican candidate?" Graham asked.

Generally, no, but we do scrutinize the winners of an election, or actual elected officials much more closely than we do the losing candidate.

Senate Minority Leader Schumer could not understand the opposition.  "There is no good reason, no good reason that the special counsel's report should not be made public.  The American people are overwhelmingly for the report being made public.  They have a right to see it.  No one should stand in the way of that."  And later "I have absolutely no idea why a member of this body would object to this basic level of transparency whatever their concern or other issues."

Perhaps the transparency is the concern.  Could Senator Graham be concerned that he might be implicated in the Mueller report?  Is the President using his relationship with Senator Graham, one of his more staunch defenders now, to keep this document out of the public eye?  Would the release of the report make any difference with Trump supporters no matter what it revealed (probably not)?

It's past time for politicians of all stripes to start putting country above party.  To end the endless reelection cycle.  To reinstate campaign finance reforms to end the endless fundraising cycle.  To put our representatives back to work for us instead of spending 50% of their time raising more money.

To take Washington's warning of factions and parties to heart.

The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism.

Washington's Farewell Address

It's time to expect better of our government.

Re-Movement.Org

Keep America Purple

Over the next couple of weeks, there will likely be several posts in this vein.  With the mid-term election coming up, we need every reminder possible to get people to the polls to vote.  Voter turnout in the 2014 mid-term election was only 36.4%, the lowest it had been since 1942, despite having the highest spend up to that point ($3.7 billion).

So again, vote.

Early voting is currently underway - take that opportunity if you can.   If not, get to the polls on Tuesday, November 6, 2018.

And no matter what anyone tells you, do NOT vote straight party anything.  That's just bad advice.  Plain and simple.

No one party automatically has all the best candidates for their particular district, region, or state.  No one party has all the best policies for governance.  Read up on the candidates and vote for those that best represent you regardless of what little letter follows their name on the ballot.

There is a world of resources on the web to find out information on the candidates and issues on your ballot, including the two below.

Ontheissues.org

VoteSmart.org

There are literally hundreds of resources out there and a breadth of information available at your finger tips.

Because here is the truth - we need each other.  We need both parties, Democrats and Republicans.  We need progressives and we need conservatives.  We need progressives to push us forward, to make us confront inequalities where they exist, and push us into new solutions.  To push us to change.  We also need conservatives to question changes so that we make the right ones, to fight for what is worth preserving, to remind us of our past.  We need the push and pull that holds us to our standards, but reminds us of reality.

Governing is supposed to be hard.  It's supposed to require compromise, to require consensus. We need governing bodies that are not all Democrats or not all Republicans.  The worst thing that could happen to our country would be unopposed control by one party of all three branches of government.  That way leads to the mantra "power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely."  We need for our legislative and executive bodies to need to work for their achievements.  To have to go across the aisle and reach agreements with the opposition.  True, we do not need obstruction, and that is where our current parties have gone astray.  But we do need vigorous debate and deliberation on the laws and policies that will govern our country.

We need a judicial branch that is impartial and will occasionally force us to move forward, whether the majority would vote for it or not.  We need their decisions like Brown v. the Board of Education or Lawrence v. Texas.

We need representatives in our government that truly reflect the diversity of our great country.  And we've got a long way to go in that regard.  While the current Congress has reached a new height of diversity, it remains as a whole is still disproportionately white and male.

And we need you to get out and vote.  We need to hear every citizen's voice.

Keep America Purple.  Because that is what accurately represents us.