Views of our Fathers’ – a political perspective from the past

Over our morning mugs of coffee, my wife and I broke from our usual news readings and waxed nostalgic…sort of.

The topic was a current (and ubiquitous) one, but our nostalgia helped frame a political perspective about that topic. A perspective from the past.

I should say views. Three of them to be precise.

My wife’s father’s, my father’s, and my grandfather’s – all of them Republicans – dyed-in-the-wool, elephant-loving, Grand Old Party guys.

Although my wife and I grew up in different parts of the country (and she is thirteen days older than I – I have this thing for older women…), the type of men who raised us was the same.

All three served as Republican precinct committeemen – for years. My grandfather (my mother’s dad) also served several terms in the administration of one of the Republican mayors of the city from where I came, and he was good friends with a famous Republican senator – long before the senator ever went to Washington, D.C..

All have passed now. But they are icons of times gone – tough men, respected by their peers, admired, but men hardened by the life through which they had walked. Though gentle, guiding, and protective, they made the word ‘safety’ a palpable, living shelter we took for granted all of their lives.

Are we glorifying these men through the lens of time and love? 

No. They had their foibles too. They had their peculiar traits. Their wives rolled their eyes or admonished them like children whenever they blabbed on and on with an opinion.

But they were men who cared for this country. They were a part of its history. They respected its institutions – not blindly – but accepting. Unknowingly, their credo was the same as Abraham Lincoln’s: Fix it, if its wrong, but until then, live with it.

And to a man, they would have scoffed at Donald Trump – a person with whom NONE of these three men would have deigned to shake hands. They would have coldly looked at it – hanging in the air – and turned and walked away.

Isn’t that what we should do?

Food for thought.

Mac