Log In | Register
Texas is not overwhelmingly Obama country. The state is pretty heavily Republican. So I have often imagined negative feelings from others when I wear my Obama for President T-shirt to Wal Mart or the gym. McCain / Palin signs and bumperstickers outnumber Obama / Biden by a three-to-one ratio. And I live with that reality, with a sense of uneasy acceptance.
Last night, someone stole the "Obama for President" sign I had in my front yard. I was proud of that sign. (I admit that a vein of defiance flows through me, living in such a "suppressive" political environment.) And, I felt a mild sense of anger at first, but, surprisingly not much outrage. More than anything I was disappointed. My political idealism took a big hit.
Did the person(s) who stole my sign think it would be a help to their candidate? Did it really present some kind of threat to their equilibrium? Do they have such a hatred for Obama or Democrats that a yard sign trespassed on their tolerance level?
Forgiveness is not an issue here, for me. The hurt I feel is not directed at the unknown person(s) who took my sign. It is rather a hurt emanating from a decaying body politic. A dismay with the presidential process in which we have been engaged. I suppose I could offer forgiveness to the perpetrator, but then, they probably are not contrite, not do they want my pardon. Rather, I just accept the current divided body we have become.
This morning I heard General Colin Powell speaking about the polarization of our nation, how harmful it is to our attempts to govern ourselves. And, I remembered Obama's words at the Democratic National Convention in 2004. We are not a red America nor a Blue America; we are the United States of America. Sadly, that is not true for the one(s) who took my sign. Their sense of "unity" does not include my divergence.
Have you noticed a dearth of political bumper stickers this time around? In my part of Texas, perhaps ten per cent or less of the cars and trucks have partisan stickers on them. It seems that in years past three or four times as many bumpers proclaimed a candidate. Is this my imagination, or has the political process become so extremely partisan that people shy away from expresssing support? Have the candidates become so demonized that we fear some kind of strong reaction to open words of allegiance? Has our political process become a "war" of survival, so that our passions have come to include the possiblity that the opposition needs to be eliminated?
Or that opposition yard signs need to be stolen and destroyed?
