Respect for the office.
I can remember holding my wife with tears running down both of our faces when our country elected Barak Obama. I am a white, middle class, New Englander, who has been sheltered from issues of race and urban poverty for most all of my life, and I was very proud that we had elected a man who could move us with his words and deep belief in the power of the human spirit. As the camera panned around the audience in Grant Park on that night, I saw the tears of joy and hope in people of all colors, and I know I was not alone in believing we as a nation had turned a corner in the march toward realizing Dr. King’s dream.
I took a group of students to Washington D.C. in March after the election. We never met the President himself, even though we were guests of a one of his early cabinet members. In the evening we hung our coats in the same closet used by all dignitaries for hundreds of years; we walked down the colonnade toward the Rose Garden; and finally we settled into the West Wing in a corner office. We talked about the auto industry bailout and the fears of economic collapse that greeted the President in those first months. A small group of teenagers, my wife, and I sat transfixed at what we were hearing, felt honored to be on that hallowed ground at a pivotal moment in our country’s history, and were awed by the torrid pace of which the wheels of democracy were turning.
I watched with jubilation when Obama was elected to a second term and hoped against hope that there would be some spirit of cooperation in a new majority. But all I saw was politicians on both sides refusing to do their job, refusing to work together for the best interests of the entire country, instead choosing to be obstructionist, insular and consumed by their own interests.
On November 8th 2016, I walked in the cold damp rain of a German winter morning too afraid to speak to anyone as I could not contain my fear and heartbreak. As I walked into the gray, overcast morning I wept for the soon to be empty West Wing and I wept for the message we sent to the nation and the world about the office of the Presidency of the United States.
Now I rage, I mourn, and I worry that we have given up the belief that the President of the United States must be a person of character, flawed perhaps, goofy at times, but one who deeply understands the importance of the role of protector of our democracy; that the President is a role model for all Americans; that he is most importantly deeply humbled and honored to serve our nation as the leader of our democratic ideals and processes.
Our congress and senate have lost their way; they have ingratiated themselves by allowing money to be their motivator and by drawing voting districts so they can be re-elected. We have allowed congressmen to be celebrated who call a President a liar; we have allowed senators to refuse to do their jobs as required by tradition and law, and worst of all we have made the mistaken conclusion that since all of this is so broken that the presidency must be as well. The people we have elected to office have shaped their jobs to their liking and do not uphold their most important role: to be part of a government, working together for all the people of the United States. It is the fault of the people we have elected that our government is inept and ineffective, it is not the structure itself.
I have voted for Republicans and Democrats, and I have always voted, for the man or woman that would most honor the office of the presidency. But even when my vote was not with the winner, I have never felt that the individual did not fully embrace the awesome responsibility of the task of serving something greater than himself.
The anger and frustration that we are seeing in protests and print is not, at its core, about Republicans vs. Democrats. It is as it was in the election, about a visceral reaction to a candidate. To the fact we have a man who has demonstrated utter disregard for tradition, for self-accountability and for the framework that is the foundation of the United States. His words and his actions have driven a wedge through the heart of America: in a fracture not created by him, but split wide open only for his personal gain. He refuses to accept that because all that have gone before him have held reverence for tradition and practice, that he should also. He is president in title now and he must show us all that he is accountable to every American citizen and to the position of awesome responsibility as the leader of the most powerful nation in the free world. He is a public servant holding a temporary office at the will of the people.
People are angry and afraid in large part because respect, humility and human decency have been replaced by insolence, belligerence and shameful actions not befitting of our most important office in the land. People are angry and afraid because we have allowed our system of government to become broken and now we have allowed that dysfunction to tarnish our most important democratic institution, the office of the President of the United States of America.