America is a long exchange over what human beings owe each other.
In August of 2017, I got to feeling stressed over what I took to be the consistent suppression of conscience among elected officials who, I believed, knew better. So, as I often do, I wrote words out on a piece of paper. The only elected official I’d met in person at the time was Marsha Blackburn. But since then, Bill Lee, who I know, has become my governor, and I’ve since met Mark Kelly. I say all that to note that, to my knowledge, I haven’t had any luck getting this draft to anyone who might read it or adapt it to fit their own context. Possible exception: Ben Sasse and I have a mutual friend who told me he’d show it to him. Don Cheadle also RT’d it.
If it’s helpful, please feel free to cross out “Republican,” but, as of today, there aren’t any Democratic elected officials I know of who are seeking to overturn the results of an election.
Reconciliation without reckoning is just marketing. We, the people of the United States of America, bear responsibility for what’s undertaken, at home and abroad, in our name. Exercising that responsibility by asking our elected officials to resign or repent isn’t “cancel culture.” It’s the ancient invitation to baseline moral seriousness, a party to which everyone everywhere is invited. Same as it ever was.