At this moment, I am heartened that the left and the right in the US have come together to advance the same basic solution to the major problems in the US.
You know what I mean of course...
I mean everyone is talking about it...
Really?
I am talking about the urgent request to reduce government and strengthen community. There is a striking similarity between the movement to defund the police and the cry for smaller, less intrusive government that has been a battle cry of US politics.
This is literally "starve the beast," in important ways this is Bush's "thousand points of light". And it is Stokely Carmichael's "call for black people to define their own goals, to lead their own organizations.” There are major points of common ground to be seen here.
If you supported the tea party and cannot distance yourself from the passions of the moment to see that common ground, you may want to ask what is blocking your vision. If you support a movement that takes an act of property destruction as its name, could it possibly be prejudice that stops you from offering any sympathy at all to today's protests?
In truth I could ask the same of those who support today's protests but are unable to see any connection with tea party rhetoric. So, if you support the protests, you don't get off either. If you were ever dismissed the ideas of the tea party in whole cloth, it's time to eat crow. If you every unfriended a tea party supporter, its time to welcome them back as a potential ally.
Wherever you stand, I do think we owe it to ourselves to make the effort to see that common voice in who you might have thought of as "the other". We owe it to ourselves to start our days out with a bit of sympathy and understanding. I myself was pretty bowled over to hear the language of the tea party in the words of black lives matter. I have a bit of crow on the stove which I'll be snacking on as I walk this morning.
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