I didn’t get what I wanted on Tuesday, but I’m still an American, and what I want more than anything is for this country to come back together to find some common ground. We need to move forward. In reading the coverage since the election, however, it seems that we’re more divided now than we have been at any other time in my entire life. I honestly don’t know what to do with that.
Protesting doesn’t help. You had your chance at the ballot box, and you failed. That’s life. The question is—what do you do now?
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| Jim Webb's signature issue turned this election. |
As I’ve watched people melt down this week, I’ve wondered if maybe this isn’t the first time some of these folks have lost an election in which they had an actual stake. For me, it’s not. I watched helplessly as George H.W. Bush lost to Bill Clinton in the immediate aftermath of America’s most successful overseas conflict just as the economy was turning around following an extremely minor recession. In that case, America turned away from a guy who left Yale as a teenager to fight the Japanese, who’d served as Ambassador to China and Director of the CIA, in favor of a mildly successful serial philanderer from Arkansas. We were still dealing with the aftereffects of that disastrous decision up until the polls closed Tuesday night. America then re-elected Clinton over war hero Bob Dole, elected George W. Bush over Al Gore, who had at least served with Combat Camera in Vietnam, and then again over John Kerry, who won a Silver Star. We picked Obama over John McCain, and this past year we wouldn’t even give Democrat Jim Webb—Marine Corps veteran, bestselling author, and former Sec. of the Navy—so much as a hearing in the primaries despite the reality that his signature issue was the plight of America’s rural poor and working classes.
I don’t know if you noticed, but that became kind of an important issue.
The takeaway? Americans may put bumper stickers on their cars to support veterans, but they don’t give half-a-shit about their leaders’ commitment to service. Hell, today is Veterans’ Day, and most Americans don’t even have the day off. My kids both have school. And here we are. All these years later, our nation’s wanton disregard of service has come home for all of us.
I hope you’re happy with how that’s turning out.
