After William Jefferson Clinton defeated George Herbert Walker Bush, the latter did not wish a pox upon the house of the former. He left the traditional note for the incoming President in the Resolute Desk, concluding “Your success now is our country’s success. I am rooting hard for you.”
Twelve years later, the two ex-presidents were sent as emissaries to Indonesia after the December 26, 2004 tsunami devastated Aceh Province. The official airplane on which they travelled had one bed and Clinton, deferent to a man old enough to be his father, suggested that Bush take it. Clinton slept on the floor.
Former First Lady Barbara Bush was immensely grateful for Clinton’s magnanimity, and her gratitude begot the legendary friendship between the Bushes and the Clintons. Bill Clinton became such an integral part of the Bush Family that their sons deem Clinton to be their “brother from another mother.”
If the United States is to survive, Americans have to coalesce, recognizing, as George Herbert Walker Bush did, that coming together after elections is essential to “… our country’s success:” We are ultimately one people, not Democrats and Republicans as if Hatfields and McCoys or Capulets and Montagues “… and never the twain shall meet.”
I was offput by elected officials who misread election results and delivered prepared remarks lambasting the opposition. Whatever happened to the thought “magnanimous in victory, gracious in defeat?”
2022’s election portends a future of broadmindedness and inclusivity rather than intolerance. The world advanced, disinclined to return to concepts long past.
Great Britain has an Anglo-Indian Hindu Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak. America demonstrates Dr. King’s desire at the August 28, 1963 March on Washington: “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
Tuesday November 9, 2022 saw not the first lesbian governor in the country elected but rather the first two lesbian governors elected, Maura Healey in Massachusetts and Tina Kotek in Oregon. Vermont sent its first female to Washington, another lesbian, Becca Balint (the first woman and LGBTQ+ person to serve as President Pro Tempore in Vermont), becoming the fiftieth and final state to have a female delegate in Congress.
Twelve female governors will serve, one-third more than ever before. Maryland elected its first African-American governor, Wes Moore, and California elected its first Hispanic United States Senator Alex Padilla.
Attractive African American women ran for the United States Senate in Florida —Val Demings (the former chief of the Orlando Police Department) — and North Carolina — Cheri Beasley (the former chief justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court).
The Republican Party saw no small number of candidates who were people of color instead of the white men of yesteryear. The future of America is a world that looks like the world.
My beloved maternal grandfather, who lived beyond his 96th birthday, and other older family members and family friends illustrated that individuals must embrace the future enthusiastically to enjoy a long life. Being angry and stressed, averse to adaptation, is toxic and undermines one’s well-being.
All of us should support trends — encouraging signs — suggesting that the country is more cohesive and resilient than is emphasized by commentators who dwell upon negativity and instances in which Americans differ.
The triumph of democracy — the example of Volodymyr Zelenskyy‘s Ukrainian insurgency against Vladimir Putin’s Russian autocracy — finds foundation in the timeless words of President Abraham Lincoln, at Gettysburg, on November 19, 1863: “It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us… that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
Jay Wiener is a Northsider.
