Blog 1880 – 11.16.2020

The Wrong Side Of The Bed

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The Wrong Side Of The Bed

Today’s story mirrors for many of us the news accounts of these last couple of weeks. It seems like the whole United States of America has woken up on the wrong side of the bed, with our perspective, our points of view, turned upside down. We are wondering when, if ever, we will awake from this topsy turvy dream or nightmare.

A return to normalcy, civility, class, is that too much to hope for? Perhaps it is after four years of lower and lower expectations and performances by our political leaders. The will of the people has been clearly expressed at the polls. The results of the Presidential election are only in dispute by sore losers who seem never to have watched a sports match where both teams, winners and losers, line up to shake each other’s hands at the conclusion of the game. At what age did good sportsmanship become unacceptable and unfashionable?

For over two hundred years this republic with all it political divisions has still been by and large a class act. The legacy of the current administration is on shaky ground in the eyes of clearly over five and a half million more voters and thirty six electoral votes over the two hundred seventy votes needed to win. Yet the losers seems adamant about adding false cries of foul and rigged to its last official entries into the history books.

No one likes to admit defeat or loss but even the rare shut out pitcher or football team who has gone thirteen and O will admit that these are only rare if glorious moments in any individual’s or team’s history. No one wins them all and often the way we accept defeat says more about us than the way we brag about our wins.

We all have less than our best days, but really doesn’t it say more about who we think we are, the way we deal with them. Suicides, whatever their reasons or the root causes behind them are sad especially for the surviving loved ones who cannot help but wonder if they failed the lost one in some way.

Some losses are incredibly hard to accept and no wonder when many of us have been taught all our lives that it is all about winning. Donald Trump is not the only one that lives in a myth of rewritten history in which all his losses have been turned into wins. Awarding every child participant a trophy only perpetuates this myth. Children should be taught at an early age to play to win but to accept loss with class and victory with humility.

I am still hoping that our President’s better angels prevail. What he is doing will forever taint whatever Presidential legacy he hopes to leave behind and weaken the nation he swore an oath to protect and defend.

I heard a great line of advice offered to a narrowly defeated Presidential candidate who was having a hard time accepting his loss and was contemplating another run in four years. The election winner in the other party had offered him Secretary of State in his administration. The losing candidate’s campaign chairman advised him to take the rare opportunity to help bring the country together as he had pledged his Presidency would do and be remembered for that rather than as just one of those men who did not know when to quit running.

I hope Donald Trump’s Presidency ends on a better note than the current tune being played seems to be stuck on. As a long time landlord himself, I am sure that being evicted would be an especially humiliating experience.

Mister President, show us all that you can indeed muster up one last class act.

Your friend and fellow traveler,

David White

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Let It Be