Steady . . . 

A dear friend, one of my first writing companions from decades ago, recently asked, “Are you better off than you were two years ago?”

I have given it some thought, and my answer is this: I think we are all better off now than we were when Donald Trump was in the White House.

Are things perfect? No. When are they ever? But with leaders who will tackle problems that will help make life better for all the people rather than their  billionaire friends, there is hope. And I want to preserve that in our country’s leadership.

I find it sad that many of my friends and neighbors have been pulled in by the lies fed to us continually by the former president and his supporters. My friend sent me a link to a speech by someone she trusts, an online Reverend who has a YouTube channel. I googled his name and ended up with a lot of red flags. I don’t see myself trusting him. With all the extreme rhetoric on many topics, how do you trust anyone?

I lean more toward someone like Dan Rather and his comments on Steady. As news anchor on CBS for much of my life, Dan Rather has covered a lot of  topics in the past five decades. He’s from my parents’ generation and I respect the perspective on history the elders have. Like others I hold in high esteem in his generation, Dan Rather has never seen anything as troubling for our country as Donald Trump’s leadership.

From a recent post on his Steady website, ( https://steady.substack.com ):

“Let us not pretend everything is okay.”

“Let us not give up hope.”

“Let us not minimize the problems before us.”

“Let us not deny reality.”

“Let us not demonize one another.”

“We are facing a midterm election in which everything feels like it is at stake. And indeed it is.”

It’s tempting to raise my hands in despair, thinking that all is already lost. But we can’t afford that. The keynote speaker at the recent convention for the Kansas Authors Club mentioned it’s okay to keep trying, even if you don’t know whether you’ll ever succeed. Not knowing doesn’t relieve us of the obligation to try.

And we can’t stop trying to make a better world for our descendants. It is our obligation for the future.

Electing politicians who will negate the results of the next election they don’t like will be disastrous to everything we hold dear,  even the future of our home planet.

Now is the time to get out the vote. Let’s not sit this one out, friends.