Anger, Fear and Disappointment -- What's Next?

It seems a lot of people are angry today, at least that’s what they say. It looks more like too many of us are afraid and putting on our angry face to chase away the demons that threaten us. It’s one of those disappointing times when those who spread fear like a virus are winning and they freeze too many of us like the proverbial deer in the headlights.

They tell us there’s no room to support one another, encourage us to assume that every man, woman and family is isolated, preyed upon by everything from Al Qaeda to big government. We’re to fear the Democrats who spend too much and Republicans who only care about the rich. We’re to feel a threat from anyone who doesn’t believe as we do. Too many of us are discouraged because, in these difficult times, we don’t feel safe and we’re not sure that we and our country are going in the right direction.

It is important to remember that we’ve been here before, not once, but many times. The price of independence and American democracy is high. As long as we can acknowledge that its value is of equal or greater importance, we remain reasonable. But, at times like these, when we’re more concerned with what we don’t have today or don’t know about tomorrow, we become fearful and we attempt to protect ourselves with anger. It’s as if we believe that shouting will drown out our problems.

There’s often talk of the “founding fathers,” those men who crafted and signed the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. We refer to those men and that time as if they were in perfect harmony and had all the answers for the questions we have today. In truth, they, too, knew disappointing times, times of partisan politics, bitter divisions, fear and anger.

John Adams, our second U.S. President, and pivotal in the country’s founding, said: “The people, when they have been unchecked, have been as unjust, tyrannical, brutal, barbarous, and cruel, as any king or senate possessed of uncontrollable power. The majority has eternally, and without one exception, usurped over the rights of the minority."

Thomas Jefferson, our third President and a key architect of our country’s foundations famously fell out with John Adams, once a close friend. As Adams left office, to be followed by Jefferson, Adams’ last-minute appointments, Jefferson said, were “among my most ardent political enemies.” Their estrangement lasted a decade until mutual friends encouraged them to begin corresponding. They did so until both died on July 4, 1826.

Of course, the Civil War was the height of disaffection and anger that was carried to the ultimate level of conflict. We can be grateful that the current uproar hasn’t led to that! Abraham Lincoln was, of course, not popular with Southern politicians. But even staunch Union supporters managed to say some pretty awful things about him. His own Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton, for whom Lincoln generally had high regard, referred to Lincoln’s “painful imbecility.”

So, it’s nothing new, this incivility. It is, however, a regrettable sign of our times. We can only hope that whatever the outcome of today’s elections, the message taken by both parties and lived out in Washington sooner rather than later is that there is important business to do in this country and it’s time to do it. It’s natural for there to be disagreement about which solutions will work. If there is no compromise, thus nothing is done, and then none of them deserves to be called public servants.

[Sorry no pretty pictures with this one.]