Time machine

My late-August childhood birthdays typically had a damper thrown on them. There was always a cake and nice presents. But a new academic year beckoned. It was time to head back to Pierce School for class.

One particular birthday in 1968 carried an added bummer. Sitting on the floor after dinner, checking out my new model car, there was much consternation on TV.

In the streets of Chicago, during the Democratic National Convention, large numbers of young adults clashed with police. The live television coverage showed it all. Vietnam War protestors howling, some getting clubbed by city law enforcement, then arrested and dragged off to jail.

“The whole world is watching,” the protestors chanted.

For a 10-year-old, it was hard to decipher the events occurring in your native country. The prior April, TV news broke word of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination. Two months later Robert F. Kennedy suffered the same fate.

The quick lesson was that distressed, screaming people on television were not a good thing. It was easy for a youngster to wonder: Are things ever going to be peaceful again?

Step into the time machine and travel to that same country, 56 years later. There are still distressed, screaming people on TV. Once again, the whole world is watching.

Some would claim that Saturday’s assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump in Pennsylvania shows our society is tearing apart. It seems more accurate to say that the divide has existed for a while. This is just the latest piece of evidence.

We can’t discuss our political differences in a civil way. National politics is no longer fodder for good-natured bar room debate. Now, it splits families. And don’t mention your views – whatever they are – in the workplace. 

Democrats can’t dare say a nice thing publicly about Republicans and vice versa. As for the truth? It’s no longer an absolute. It’s a pliable thing, shapable to whatever political point you might try to make.

On the local level, for individual candidates to identify as either Democrats or Republicans, seems unnecessarily divisive. People running for municipal office might have different views on issues and policy. Why attempt to hook them to national politics?

It would seem we all have more in common as Middlesex Borough residents, than by trying to identify with national candidates we’ll never come to know personally. In Middlesex, more than most towns, we should know well the dangers of falling in line behind leaders based on party affiliation.

Maybe there are still at least a few political leaders who get it and will drag us back to civility.

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro had the difficult task of comforting the families of Trump supporters who got caught in the gunfire during the attempt on the ex-president’s life.

As of Sunday morning, one had died – Corey Comperatore, a church-going firefighter who “died a hero,” according to Shapiro. Once the shooting started, Comperatore dived on top of his family to protect them, taking a bullet himself in the process.

Shapiro, a Democrat, spoke eloquently about Comperatore, a GOP voter and avid Trump supporter. Both are usually outside Shapiro’s political sphere, as he’s been mentioned as a possible replacement for Joe Biden, if he opts out of the 2024 presidential race.

“Political disagreements, can never, ever, be addressed through violence,” Shapiro said. “Disagreements are okay. But we need to use a peaceful political process to settle those differences.”

”This is a moment where all leaders have a responsibility to speak and act with moral clarity,” Shapiro added, “where all leaders need to take down the temperature and rise above the hateful rhetoric that exists, and search for a better, brighter future for this nation.”

It remains to be seen if 2024 will continue to draw comparisons to 1968. Will Shapiro’s sentiments prevail? Or, will it continue to be other louder voices – political candidates, leaders and cable news talking heads who favor argument and stir unrest for the sake of scoring political points?

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