THE WHISTLE BLOWER
This Is Who We Are?
Surely America, and Americans, are more than one presidential vote
“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…
