The Direction of Intention

I was grateful for the meme. It gave me simple language, a shorthand, for something I was wrestling to articulate: We are not having a difference of opinion. We are having a difference of morality.

I wonder that it took a meme to open my eyes. This in not about information bubbles or dueling points-of-view or fact-checked-information.

We are on the eve of an election. This election is unlike any other in our lives. The choice before us eclipses policy differences. On the ballot is democracy or not-democracy. A constitutional republic or an autocracy.

The maga-candidate sows division, darkness and grievance. He is a pathological liar. He is obsessed with retribution. He vows to use the military to silence “the enemy within”. He promises to arrest his opponents. Last week he suggested a firing squad for Liz Cheney. In a multicultural nation, a nation of immigrants, he promises mass deportations.

This is not empty rhetoric. As we’ve learned from his overthrow of Roe, he will do what he says. He has a Heritage Foundation plan called Project 2025 to dismantle our democracy. He disavowed it when public knowledge of his embrace of this extreme fascist blueprint hurt his chances for election. It is his milksop pattern: by pretending he has no knowledge he abdicates responsibility for his words and actions. It is a damning statement of his lack of character. It is a characteristic of an authoritarian narcissist.

What is also a damning statement of character is to vote for such a man. To turn a blind eye to all that he has said, all that he has done, all the lies that he has told, is a statement of our character.

Presidential historian Jon Meacham recently reminded us that within the spirit of the Constitution lives the character of our leaders – and also the character of the led. Our national character. “Out of many, one” is more than a quaint Latin phrase printed on our currency.

A character check: compare the maga-candidate’s daily mantra, “I have no knowledge” with the sign Harry S. Truman proudly displayed on the resolute desk: The buck stops here.

A vote for the maga-candidate is literally a vote to suspend the Constitution (his words). It is a vote to suspend our national character. It is a vote absent of a moral center.

We choose our leaders as a reflection of ourselves. It is why this election is unlike any other in our lives. The image the maga-candidate reflects back to us is at best repugnant. It is empty of character. It is the opposite of our nation’s identity.

If you see yourself in this man, a misogynist, xenophobe, racist, filled with rage and retribution…we are having something much more profound, much more serious than a difference of opinion.

We have a difference of morality.

Decency matters. Conduct matters. Language matters. Character matters. Principles matter. Intentions matter. Discerning the difference between right and wrong, between good and bad behavior, matters.

It’s the spirit living in our Constitution. It’s the character our leaders ought to reflect back to us because it’s the character we should demand from our leaders.

And so we vote.

Democracy or not-democracy.

Will we live and act from a moral center, striving to fulfill the promise of a more perfect union, or will we throw it away and spiral into a fascist void?

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE ELECTION OF OUR LIVES

like. share. support. comment. subscribe…thank you.

Filed under: Edges, Identity, Perspective | Tagged: artistry, character, Constitution, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, decency, democracy, discernment, division, e pluribus unum, Harry S. Truman, Jon Meacham, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, Liz Cheney, moral center, moral compass, morality, principles, Project 2025, story, studio melange, The buck stops here, The Constitution of The United States, the melange, unity, vote |