Swing State!

By

Gerry Niskern

When our family moved to Phoenix in l942 and an election as coming up, my mother went over to the Arizona State Capitol. The voting and registration was set up in the rotunda of the capitol My mom said she was a Republican an wanted to register and vote. . At that time Arizona was overwhelmingly Democrat and had been for a long time; and all the election  workers were too. They hooted and hollered. “Here’s a Republican. She wants to register.” They directed her to the far end of the area and she walked down quickly amid a lot of laughing and teasing. I remember her telling the family later how embarrassed she was.

Just think, it’s now full speed ahead for the presidential election with a few weeks to go. I don’t know if I can take much more election grind with all the debates and constant challenges from friends and even total strangers.   .

The trouble with allowing political discourse is that people always think that the other person is mistaken and if they will just listen they can convince them to change their minds.

Do you sometimes suspect that political junkies want to show off their newfound knowledge on a particular issue? Hence, the aggressive questioning of others political persuasion has become the norm today.  Sure politics makes for exciting conversation. But, we all need to observe some civility and restraint.

I know a hair stylist friend who is shocked these days by the number of people who plop down in her chair and demand to know, “Well, what are you, Republican or Democrat?”  Everyone needs to remember that others may also be up on the issues and have strong personal opinions.  And that should be their right and privilege to keep their decision private.

Sure we are subject to hateful, derogatory images and dialogue on social media, but that and usually the source, can be easily deleted. Face to face confrontations are another story.

We all realize and dislike how polarized this country has become in the last several years. Let’s don’t take it a step further and become even more polarized within our parties and among our friends and even family. .

Sure we’ll all remember this year of 2020 as an unusual campaign with the excitement  and antagonism seldom seen in recent decades, but let’s lower the temperature..  Friendships weave the strong fabric of our community and nation, but lets also keep in mind the thread of friendship and family is precious and fragile.