An Old Fashion Night
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An Old Fashion Night
John Paul Derryberry
I find myself missing a lot lately. I miss the stage where I did live storytelling. I miss school assemblies, where we discussed emotional health. I miss the emotional rush of being with family and friends, in the COVID world. I miss the thrill a room full of laughter creates in a shared experience. Virtual is a friendly alternative, but it's not the same. It's decaffeinated coffee. It simulates the action of waking up with a beautiful smell of roasted coffee beans, but it lacks all the energy you get from the bean. I guess I long for the good 'ole days or pre-COVID, and pre-Trump!
What I miss dearly is looking at people I love without the Trump-color lenses -- good or bad, mostly bad in this writer's opinion. Trump has the uncanny ability to make things consistently worse. I'm a straight, white male, so to say the Donald Trump presidency affected me long term would be a lie. Yes, it was chaotic, yes it was racist, and yes, it was a giant step back for civil rights around the world. But the personal impact on my life was minimal. I have my two daughters in my house. Currently, 534 kids don't know where their parents are or if they will ever see them again.
It did slightly impact me because I am one of the few liberals in my family, and there is a great distance between us on issues, as well as actual miles. The pandemic forced us to cancel three different get-togethers. We just kept kicking them down the road hoping COVID would go away so we could see each other. Trump made us discuss uncomfortable notions about how we feel a president should behave, what's ethical, and government's role in our lives. It made me extremely uncomfortable to know people I love, admire, and think of as stable, honest, and justice-seeking people could not see through him or, worse yet, supported him. At the same time, our family bond was strong enough to withstand Trump's constant division. I know some families where it wasn't.
The problem in the last four years is that my family and conservative friends aren't racist. They don't want immigration to stop. They believe in helping the poor and a living wage. Yet, Trump time and time again, pitted two people or two groups against each other. I'm right, they're wrong, no in-between. Some will say the Democrat leaders participated in this as well, and I would agree, but never to the extent of Trump, maybe because the president's pulpit is so large. To see people I love and care about broadly painted with racist strokes was painful. I love these people, and they're not Trump. Yet, if we blindly vote for any one party instead of our moral compass, we are always open to being Trump-like. No one, no one should aspire to be Trump-like.
Not all Republicans are racist; some are, more than we realized. Also, they don't have the market cornered in racism. We have numerous issues in our institutions that have been created by both conservatives and liberals. And last night, Joe Biden took the stage and gave a boring speech about unity, about coming together, about compromise. It was an old fashioned speech from a bygone era. We have a real division in our country. Heck, there is a real division within my family about how the government should move forward. But never once was there a lack of love in the family for one another. If either one of my girls grows up and decides to register as a Republican, I know of a couple of people that can help them learn how Republicans can be compassionate and care for others.
And just maybe, that's what our country needs, an old fashioned guy who believes in compromise, considers a couple of Republicans among his best friends. A guy who openly admits he's made mistakes because we all make mistakes. A guy who believes in the old-fashioned notion that we should discuss our differences and attempt to work together. I was able to take off the Trump-tinted lenses for the first time in four years. It felt good to see hope, to see calm, to see togetherness. It felt good to view people that I consider beautiful parts of my life, without Trump obstructing my view. I miss a little less of what I used to miss this Sunday. Sometimes, what's old becomes new again. Just one old-fashioned night, but possibly a brighter future lies ahead.