We talked about potential candidates, trying to imagine how each of us might vote. Slowly, a shared concern for America took center-stage in the conversation. Somehow all of us wanted to cast votes that, one way or another, would be votes for America. A national conversation across party lines would be proposed and promoted about principles that have rendered this society the freest, most peaceful and most prosperous in the history of the planet.
Elections are about differences of opinion, and thus about division.
Forty-one years ago, when I first stepped onto American soil, that seemed to be widely accepted. Yes, there was segregation in the South and, yes, women were not generally welcome in certain occupations, but America was able to divide at the polling stations without disagreement about the fundamentals. That, apparently, is no longer the case. The word apparently is key here. We at the Center assumed that appearances once again might prove deceiving.