Come Dance with Me

As the evening settles on this monumental day, the criticism is rising and the opposition is gaining its strength. Those who didn’t vote for our new president, upset with the new paradigm in Washington, are starting their grumbling, calling him a false-prophet, and rallying on their side. They are tired of the hyperbolic praise and can’t seem to understand why we are excited.

Eight years ago, like much of the nation, we were numb from a controversial election and many of us weren’t content with the method by which it was settled. We were told by our candidate that the country would heal and we should move forward. We tried.

But that new president wasted no time scouring the country for ideologues bent on a new American century of impearlism and dominance. That president surrounded himself with advisors and secretaries that only saw things in the extremes of black and white, free of the burden of nuance and intellectual curiosity. But he was our president.

The administration laid the foundation for a financial disaster, committing generations to the debt of the day. A $300 check bought our souls for the benefit of a few. No thought to perpetuity was paid, just $300 and a smirk. The earliest accomplishments were tax cuts assailed by many in the administration’s own party – including the man who would carry the banner 8 years later.

He erased diplomacy in our own halls of democracy and his administration brought vulgarity to the floor of the United States Senate.

On September 11, when our nation and democracy was attacked and as the world rallied to our side, the administration played a game of bait and switch and set the stage for an unending war. Our cities were targets that day. All Americans lost something. Freedom itself was wounded, but the response was to turn the Federal guns inward.

The goodwill of the world was used against itself. We were misled into a war. A media, desperate for a seat at the table, bought WMDs, a Coalition of the Willing, and UN Resolutions to be ignored.

We tried to stay together.

And when a war didn’t consolidate power, when weapons went unfound and causes exposed as figments of powerful imaginations, they turned on us.

They wanted to see what we look at in libraries or who we talk to on our phones. They wanted to read our emails. They wanted to hunt us out.

For me, it got most personal when we our patriotism was questioned and our families pilloried. Gay people were painted with the same brush as pedophiles and traitors. We were labeled a threat of the most serious nature. They promoted a stain on the Constitution and used us to score cheap political points. And their strategy seemed to work.

The next targets were working people who sought protection under the law. Property owners were targeted for big box stores and the minimum wage jobs that stuff them. And we were told that the greatest threat to our lifestyle was a fat, bearded man from Flint, Michigan.

And the Democrats, the opposition, the lone voice in the wilderness chose to remain silent in the hope of not making too large a target and squeak by with insignificant victories.

A few rose up during this time. Some spoke of 2 Americans. Or a need to take our country back. Some reminisced and longed for anything from Hope. And one man, stood tall, and embraced and channeled that hope.

Yes, that man, our new president, speaks pretty. Yes, we don’t know what the next 4 years will hold. Yes, the challenges are huge. But if you wish ill will in the first 24 hours, if you don’t think you belong at the party, if must sulk in the shadows off the dance floor, it’s not because we don’t want you. We our proud of our new president, full of hope for what might be, and tired… dog tired… of being torn apart.

Come, dance in the sun with us. Engage us in spirited debate without the rhetoric spewing from talk radio. Hold to your values and seek to persuade us. But give us this day. Come, dance with me.