No pictures. This isn’t about pictures anyways.
This is about words.
When we say words aloud, we use our breath. I want you to breathe.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
Breathe for a moment. Think of your breathing. Listen to your breathing. Enjoy your breath. Revel in it—quietly. Take a minute. I’ll be here.
Welcome back.
I have seen and heard many, many words about this year’s horse race. The most important race for the White House, for example. We’ve heard that every election cycle. It’s tired. It’s a trope.
It’s also true.
We don’t live in the past. We live in the now. We breathe now. We live now. Yes, we remember yesterday and plan for tomorrow, but we live now.
In all the words I’ve seen and heard, from loving to hurtful, from inscrutible to unprincipled, from nuanced to powerful, from desperate to demonstrative, I have seen far too much about attacks inside the Democratic Party.
All of these attacks have been about policy and process.
Bernie and Hillary argue about how much education should be funded by the state.
They argue about how much the minimum wage should be raised.
They debate about foreign policy.
They discuss what will help ordinary Americans and rebuild our society.
They debate about campaign finance and the consequences of the corrosion of cashquakes and cashicanes.
They bring up problems with the process when there are irregularities, as you do.
They are not arguing about personalities.
They have not hurled personal insults at each other.
They have not engaged in character assassination.
They have not insulted each others spouses or families.
They have not publicly treated the American public with disrespect.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
We have been taught to fight. Divide and conquer is the oldest method in the book to keep groups of the less powerful from coming together to fight the powerful. We as a nation have been falling for it.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
I want the Democrats to win in the fall. I would prefer Bernie because he has stronger policies. I will accept Hillary but I want her to court my vote instead of take it for granted, and do so with policy.
I will not attack her as a person.
I will remind her that the commons are important, and I am part of the commons.
Fight for policy. Push for the policies you feel are best for the country/ Don’t stop to think about feasible. It wasn’t feasible to put a man on the moon. It wasn’t feasible to fly airplanes. It wasn’t feasible to build telegraphs. Hell, it wasn’t feasible for the colonies to win against the British Empire.
We do not fight for the feasible. We fight for the best for ourselves, our fellow Americans, and our futures. We do so now, in the present.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
Enjoy that clean air. It wasn’t feasible to regulate air pollution. We did it anyways.
We will not win this if we fight each other to burnout.
You will not burn out if you remember to breathe.
Take a moment to breathe.
We can win this. If we breathe, that is.
