An Open Letter to Republicans

Dear Republicans,

It’s human nature to want power. Republicans and Democrats and Libertarians and Green Party members and Independents — we all want the power to run things the way we think they should be run. And as human beings we have our own interests at heart. Preservation of the species and all that. I get it. It’s cool.

But what you’re doing now is not cool. And you can’t seem to stop yourselves. So listen: Cut it out, right now.

Your party is like a robot that’s outlived its creators and continues to blunder through the universe, blindly crushing whatever gets in its path. It long ago shed its noble origins — remember Abraham Lincoln? Emancipation? — and now exists simply to disenfranchise large chunks of the population and protect the elite few. It’s like a zombie risen from the dead, arms outstretched, overriding its original constraints, spewing rage and lies and greed.

So just stop it. You’re better than this, Republicans, because we’re all better than this. Human beings are a stew of conflicted loyalties and impulses that somehow, sometimes, lift us out of our own self-interest and let us catch glimpses of other people’s needs and humanity.

We all have a bully inside us. We all know the urge to dominate others. We learn to balance that bully with other qualities — the ones you’ve sloughed off like a snake sloughing off its outgrown skin. Compassion. Empathy. Generosity.

Your nominee stands for the exact opposite of those qualities. He’s not just a loose cannon — he’s careering wildly, flattening anyone who gets in his way (including his own running mate). He lies freely. He has shown himself to be utterly without principles, unfettered by conscience or regret. By his own admission he cares about nothing but his own interests.

You’ve convinced yourselves that his interests are your interests, are all of our interests, but you know better. I know you do.

Reasonable people can disagree about how best to run the country, about how to solve social dilemmas and ills: poverty, discrimination, unemployment, economic woes. Those disagreements serve us. They make us stronger. They make sure our priorities are balanced. They open the door to fresh ideas.

But what you’re doing now bears no relation to that process conceptualized by our founders. Your nominee and his supporters reject whatever noble purposes the party once held. The flag they wave might as well have one star, not 50, because their credo is naked self-interest, an it’s-all-about-me approach to the rest of the country and the world.

Is that really the standard you want to fly?

I don’t believe that. I don’t believe so many of you are blind and deaf to our common humanity. I may not agree with your policies but I know we all want what’s best not just for a few but for all Americans. I know many of you are squirming right now at the tidal wave of rage and hate and demonizing that now dominates your discourse.

So please, take a deep breath. Hug your child. Pet your dog. Your nominee is set and there’s no changing that. But that doesn’t mean you have to go along with whatever he does.

You don’t have to support the kind of rhetoric he trumpets. You don’t have to stand by while the people he’s inflamed with that rhetoric take it to its logical end. You don’t have to sanction his tactics, implicitly or otherwise.

You’re better than that. I believe in you.