Vote for decency inWashington
I’m a businessperson. My company, New Oakland Family Centers, operates in the world of counseling and healthcare. We’re a family company, founded by my dad.
Ordinarily, it’s just bad for business to take political stances of any kind and the reason is obvious: you end up irritating the roughly one-half of your customers or partners who disagree. That’s certainly true for healthcare companies like mine, but it would be true if we sold shoes or software or pizzas or anything else.
But some things are important enough to put all those concerns aside. This year’s election is one of those things. Our country needs new leadership in Washington.
I’ll be blunt: we need to elect Joe Biden.
This election is not about party affiliation — or about big government vs. small government — or about being socially liberal or fiscally conservative. I’m not talking about policies or legislation or taxes or regulations or any of those things.
None of that matters this time around. I’m talking about returning to principles and values that are more important than all of that . . . values grounded in decency, kindness and respect for each other.
This election is about closing the divide that has grown too wide among us as Americans — a divide that we have never seen before in my lifetime.
We all know that our current president is responsible for an ongoing barrage of hateful, mean-spirited and untruthful conduct that, little by little eats away at the collective bonds that unite us as Americans — every day.
Every. Single. Day.
We have all seen how the past four years brought out the worst, weakest and most ignorant impulses in our country and our culture. If we’re honest with each other, we all know the past four years have exposed some of the darkest and most dangerous things we’re capable of.
They are years that have been full of prejudice and hate for people of different races, genders and beliefs. They have been years full of reckless policy and hateful rhetoric, a lack of leadership, corruption, and blunder after blunder.
If we’re really honest with each other, we all know this is true, and we know it has been fed by the failed leadership of our current President and the administration in Washington.
As a country, we are in the middle of tough times on many fronts. We all know what they are. But I couldn’t be more hopeful that on election day, as a country, we will do the right thing and vote like our democracy depends on it. Because it really does.
I have friends who are Democrats, Republicans, and independents. In any other year, I wouldn’t even begin to think it was my role or responsibility to persuade people who to vote for. This year is different.
So I am asking that you vote Biden/Harris in this election. I make this request to not only help begin to restore civility to our country but also to begin the slow process of returning to a time we can feel reconnected to our country’s best traditions and ideals of fairness, equality, justice and rule of law.
That’s what I’m voting for. That’s why I’m voting for Biden and Harris. I hope you will, too.