The Long Night is Over

Photo Credit Jim Emeray http://www.jimemery.com/wallpaper/images/sonorandawn_wp.jpg

The sun is rising over Arizona. The long night has finally come to a close, the long night of eight years of progressive rule, the long night of derision and marginalization, the long terrible night of the 2016 Presidential Election.

In the early hours of November 9th in the year of our Lord 2016 Donald J. Trump announced the concession of Fmr. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the end of the most ugly, divisive, vitriolic campaign in the history of our nation. To quote President Ronald Reagan “It’s morning in America again.” As I watch the sun crest the peaks of the Superstition Mountains and paint the sky a vibrant deep blue, I know that the time has come for reconciliation.

This is the hard part and the most crucial part of our culture and our political system: laying down arms. In the film The American President Michael Douglas’ President Andrew Shepard said “America isn’t easy. America is advanced citizenship. You’ve got to want it bad.” Every four years our nation undergoes a bloodless revolution, the battle is always hard fought and exhausting, taxing the heart, mind and soul. I call out to my fellow Americans to embrace your “advanced citizenship”.

We must remember today that our political opposition are our brothers and sisters, co-inheritors of the America our founders struggled for to their last, the America we seek to restore. Look to Ephesians 6:12 “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms”. This is a warning and it is as true as it was thousands of years ago. We’ve succeeded in the revolution of 2016, now we must bind up not only our wounds but those of our countrymen. We must continually remind each other that we are respected adversaries not enemies, while we are in opposition we can find harmony.

Today we must reach out a hand of love and brotherhood to our liberal family: not in condescension, not in boast or braggadocio, but in true familial love and respect. On talk radio we laugh at those who said they would leave this nation if President-Elect Trump won his race. To those who gave such a statement my response is: stay. E Pluribus Unum, out of many: one. We need our opposition, we always have. Our founders built America on the notion that there is room here for everyone who has a love of this nation. It’s facile to say that the Democrats hate America, no one who hated a nation so much would fight so hard to move it to the best design they can imagine. Our vision of that design differs from theirs, and that’s okay. Unpack your bags and come back to the table. The Statue of Liberty says “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” She mentions nothing of political affiliation.

Together, as conservatives and liberals we must join hands and ready ourselves for the longer harder battle ahead: The battle to save America in a world gone mad.

-Originally Published on LinkedIn on 11/15/16