You have just been given a Magic Wand. Your mission is to heal the divisions that are plaguing this country.
Choose wisely. This Magic Wand is a single shot wand. You have only one chance to achieve your mission. What do you do?
Do you waive your Magic Wand and make President Trump disappear, or maybe Senator Schumer? Don’t waste your shot on Hillary Clinton. She has pretty much disappeared already.
Making either one of these two polarizing figures disappear might have a temporary effect, but all too soon a clone would emerge, and we would be back to where we are now: a divided nation, incapable of acting for the common good.
Try this instead. Waive you Magic Wand and make the words “democrat” and “republican” disappear. Gone forever. Neither word would ever be spoken again. Neither word would appear in print or on screen. Gone.
Do that and suddenly the conversation would be about policy, not personality. Decisions would be made, not to embarrass or damage the opposition, but to improve the lives of all Americans. Political parties would no longer be compelled to attack or degrade. Political parties would not exist. This would be the end of “Gotcha Politics.” (See Lanny Davis, Scandal: How Gotcha Politics is Destroying America, St Martin’s Griffin, August 7, 2007)
By the way, this is not a new idea. Our Founding Fathers warned of the perils of party politics.
In October of 1780, John Adams put it this way, “There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution.” (Charles Francis Adams (ed.), The Works of John Adams, Vol. 9. Boston, 1854, pp. 510-511). (See also, George Washington’s Farwell Address, September 19th, 1796 and James Madison, The Federalist #10, November 27th 1787).
No more Democrats, no more Republicans. Just Americans. Mission accomplished.