THE WHISTLE BLOWER

This Is Who We Are?

Surely America, and Americans, are more than one presidential vote

FranMorelandJohns
3 min readNov 11, 2024

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a group of silhouetted people walking
Photo by Jahanzeb Ahsan on Unsplash

“That’s not who we are!”

It may have been the most repeated phrase of political speeches — particularly among Democratic candidates — from the moment Donald Trump was officially named the standard bearer of the Republican party last summer.

The phrase morphed, after the recent election, into a new and perhaps applicable form: “This is who we are.” I heard it repeated, on November 6, in anger and through tears.

But perhaps it’s a little early to declare our national identity. Perhaps we’re still, as we have happily been for centuries, an amalgam of shapes, sizes, colors, opinions and origin stories. Even if a majority of us voted to install, as our leader, a man utterly abhorrent to the rest of us.

Does that mean — because he is a vulgar, misogynistic, narcissistic, adulterous felon incapable of compassion or other human virtues — that we are also defined in those terms? That this is, indeed, Who We Are?

I think not.

Whichever way you voted, you’re still who you were on November 5, right? A regular human being full of contradictions and complexities. That holds true for the American citizenry…

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FranMorelandJohns
FranMorelandJohns

Written by FranMorelandJohns

Lifelong newspaper & magazine writer, author, blogger at franjohns.net, agitator for justice, kindness & interfaith understanding.

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