If you were to write a letter today to be opened in 50 years by family members in Gen Alpha, what would you say to justify your vote in 2020?
I currently have four granddaughters who all fall into the Gen Alpha demographic cohort. At 68, my focus is primarily on what I can do now that will make a difference to their future. We have been told that the election in 2020 will be the most consequential election in many decades. So I thought it would be a good exercise for me to sit down and write a letter that my grandchildren and their gen-mates could read and learn why I chose the future I did for them when I voted for Joe Biden and against Donald Trump.
For me, the single most important factor is the environment. Number two is societal harmony – will we continue to be pulled apart with ever greater disparities in resources and opportunities? And the third is America’s role as a leader for good in the world. This letter for Gen Alpha to read in 2070 will be posted as the “CounterPoint” (Blue heading) on my blog.
I have sought help on explaining why, if my main concern is for my grandchildren’s future, I would support President Trump. Fortunately, one of my FB friends provided the initial “Point” (Red heading).
I am hopeful that other FB friends will send me letters that I can post as either points or counterpoints explaining why they are voting for their respective candidates. While this may seem to be an overly long perspective to take – the impact that our decisions today will have two generations hence, by Iroquois standards, this is being woefully short sighted.
The Great Law of the Haudenosaunee, the founding document of the Iroquois Confederacy, which is the oldest living participatory democracy on Earth, had as it core philosophy: “In our every deliberation, we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next SEVEN generations.”
Looking forward to receiving some thoughtful and sober letters that are not demeaning or nasty. You can post them on the FB wall or email them to me at dtcre@bellsouth.net
Point 1: Letter to Gen Alpha on why I voted for Donald Trump (to be read in 2070).
This Point was written by Mykes (Baker) Vinci on my Facebook Page.
Dear great grandchildren, I was asked to write a letter explaining why I voted republican in 2020. First, the main platform by which the Democratic Party ran was the climate. While I agreed that global warming was an issue, as a scientist l, I saw little or no proof that we as consumers could directly affect any noticeable change and if we did, larger countries such as China were leaving leaving such a massive footprint, while convincing half of our country that they could be trusted; history proved they could not be trusted.
The left also tried to make a case against our current POTUS, that his reaction to the Chinese Virus was poor, even though he was labeled as a xenophobe and a racist for closing off traffic from other countries. I feel certain that the leaders on the left, based on their collective opinion about border security would have waited too long to do the same, possibly doubling or tripling the death toll.The left was supporting a very violent organization while standing behind a facade of counter racism, only to find out that it was funded by very rich, tyrannical people that had little empathy for “black lives” and was subsequently hurting them more than helping them. The left suggested that another group, ANTIFA, was just an imaginary entity, when they were a very dangerous and destructive group of mostly white anarchist, that had little empathy for anything other than mayhem.
The left supported late term abortion and was trying to change our great nation to a socialist regime, which would have destroyed our economy and wrecked healthcare.It seemed that no degree of ignorance or declining mental capacity was too much for the next POTUS candidate and they wanted POLITE, more than COMPETENT.
Counterpoint 1: Letter to Gen Alpha on why I voted for Joe Biden (to be read in 2070).
Dear Grandchildren, Great Grandchildren and perhaps Great Great Grandchildren:
I wrote this letter to you fifty years ago on the eve of the election of 2020. My purpose is to explain to you why I voted for Joe Biden rather than Donald Trump. Coco and every descendent of my parents voted for Biden as well.
My initial choice for President was Mike Bloomberg – a very competent and proud man. But the Democrat Party chose Joe Biden as its candidate. And I have come to believe that he is actually the best choice. America was so divided. More than anything, we needed a leader who could bring us closer together – someone we could relate to and trust. One thing I know to be true is that it is the tragedies, defeats, and humiliations which life brings that God can most effectively use to mold us into the person He wants us to be. And one of the main things He wants is the replace our prideful hearts with a humble one. For a leader to be a uniter, I believe it’s essential that they have a humble and teachable heart.
At age 17, when asked by a friend of his father’s what he planned to do with his life, Joe Biden said he was going to be president of the United States. At age 24, on his first date with his to be first wife, he told her he would be a US Senator by age 30 and then president of the US. Clearly, Biden had a prideful heart – but he also felt a calling. While he was elected US Senator at age 29, he suffered many terrible tragedies and humiliations thereafter. He first ran for President in 1988 and was derailed by a foolish speech. He ran again in 2008 and was again undermined by a perceived racial slur against Candidate Obama. He later humbled himself and served as the VP for the young upstart Obama. As Biden was gearing up to run in 2016, his favorite son, Beau, contracted cancer and died. Biden was so crushed by the loss, he withdrew. In reading Biden’s autobiography, it is clear these tragic experiences brought him to his knees, humbled him and enabled him to have genuine compassion for others.
By contrast, Donald Trump is consumed with pride. He has made it clear that he believes he knows more and is smarter than everyone else including his senior generals and the medical experts. In the summer of 2016, he announced that he had become a Born-Again Christian. However, he said that he did not need to ask God for forgiveness of any sins because he had never done anything requiring forgiveness. There is no way that God can teach someone, can mold or guide him if he is so filled with pride that he thinks he knows more than everyone else and can’t see when he has done wrong, feel convicted, and then repent.
We learned from our two greatest presidents, Washington and Lincoln, that the key to a president’s success is to surround himself with advisors who are selected for their competence and integrity with little regard for their initial devotion to or agreement with the president. President Trump has taken the opposite approach. The primary and really only criteria he has sought in his advisors are loyalty to and agreement with himself, i.e. sycophants. Many of the advisors he chose on that basis were subsequently forced to resign because of their malfeasance. Many of his most competent advisors were forced out or sidelined for not telling him what he wanted to hear. The turnover of Trump’s senior officials has been unprecedented. It is simply not possible for a president to make wise decisions – particularly ones that will attract broad agreement without the help of competent objective advisors.
The first advisor Joe Biden chose for his administration was Kamala Harris, a competitor who savaged him during the presidential debates. I believe that Biden’s many decades of public service at the highest level has enabled him to observe and to now select the very best of advisors for his administration.
America and the world are facing huge problems that cannot be solved by one country and certainly not by one party of one country and absolutely not by one man or woman. The threats posed by anthropogenic climate change, world-wide pandemics, and terrorism mandate that America work in concert with other countries to address these challenges. We need a president who is respected by people in other nations and particularly those in western Europe who most closely share our values. Whereas the US was once looked to as the leader of the free world, the most recent survey by the Pew Research Center finds that people in Western Europe have more trust in the leaders of Russia and China than they do in Donald Trump. Western Europeans “confidence that the American President will do the right thing” has fallen from over 70% during the Obama/Biden Administration to 15%. It will be impossible for President Trump to lead the world to address these huge problems because no one will follow him. Joe Biden, on the other hand, inherits the good will and positive relationships that he and Obama built during their 8 years together.
I am hopeful that if God allows Joe Biden to fulfill his 60-year quest to become president, it will be because Joe is now ready for this awesome responsibility. More than just the knowledge and relationships he has developed over his lifetime, I believe it will be Biden’s humility and compassion that will be most valuable to the good people of America and of the world today, and hopefully for the future that you are now living in.