I Am Not Your Enemy

November 2, 2017

I am not your enemy.  We are probably much alike; hitting the alarm, making breakfast, navigating the school drop-off line, trying not to spill the thermos of coffee, pondering how much yard work awaits this weekend.  And I grew up in a small town, though I make my life in a big city.  They are both America.  I love my neighbors back home, as well as those around me here, now, though they are far apart from one another in so many ways.  But they are all Americans.  What we want is not that different – not in any meaningful way.  We all want a good life for ourselves and our families.  We all want better opportunity for our children.  We want to get what we pay for, and not to worry too much about losing our health and well-being.  We want safety.  We want to grow old with dignity, surrounded by those we love.  These are not partisan positions, and all that truly separates us are the finer points of how we achieve these common ends, together. 

I am not your enemy.  We may have cast our votes differently, but that does not mean we must hate one another.  It does not mean I hate our country, nor our system of government.  I am not your enemy.  I am your advocate.  I am your brother.  My vote is always cast in support of you, of your right to these things for which we all strive together, of your right to express your beliefs and to speak your mind, whatever that may be.  You may not believe my vote was cast for the best candidate to shepherd us on to our sunlit uplands, but never doubt that it was cast in good faith and for our common benefit and purpose. 

I am not your enemy.  You are being told otherwise.  But those who tell you otherwise know better, and their purpose is not the future we hope to share.  Their goal is instead to divide us, to profit from our anger, to gain power and position, and to use that position to build their own lives and fortunes.  They are both domestic and foreign, both seen and unseen.  They are telling you that what you hear them say, from their very lips, is not what you hear, and what you see with your own eyes is not what you see, and in time, you have come to believe them.  But because they are free from the work-a-day constraints of their followers, and of the rest of us, you must recognize that they can live anywhere, do most anything, and have no particular allegiance to you nor to me, nor to the prosperity of our nation and its people, nor even to our flag.  No, they live above the daily fray of American life and struggle the rest of us must endure, all the while turning us against one another.  And drunk with the emotional highs of the anger and outrage they have poured down our throats, we blindly and unwittingly do their bidding, tearing down no one but ourselves.  Nations pursuing enemies within will inevitably implode.

I am not your enemy.  Your true enemies are inflaming your resentments, stoking your fear and anger, and turning you against your fellow Americans.  But I am not your enemy.  I am your friend.  As are many, many millions more.