Your America Must Survive

Dear Hillary Voter,

If you are the passionate believer in America you claim to be you must fight for America's survival starting today.  You outnumber Trump voters by 106,053, you're better educated, and, by and large, you're motivated by hope not fear, optimism not anger, progress not regress.

Your America was born of an idea that defeated the world's most powerful empire...and did it again when she was just 29 years old in The War of 1812.  Your America survived Andrew Jackson and the Trail of Tears.  Your America survived the loss of 620,000 souls -- 2% of the population -- in the Civil War, more souls than were lost in WWI, WWII, and Vietnam combined.   Your America survived the Spanish Flu of 1918-1920 in which 50,000,000 died worldwide and 1 in 4 Americans were infected.  So many Americans perished that we began to run out of coffins and gravediggers.

Your America triumphed over fascism in Germany, Italy, Russia, and Japan.  It vanquished communism in the USSR and China (yes, China where capitalism is slowly replacing communism while democracy remains a dream).  Your America's values have freed hundreds of millions, perhaps billions, from the bonds of political oppression and economic privation in Eastern Europe (Poland, former East Germany, Ukraine, Romania, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania) and Asia (Japan, South Korea, Philippines, Hong Kong, Taiwan).

Your America -- a country defined by the ideals of freedom, equality, acceptance, love, charity, and a belief in the greater good over naked self-interest -- must and will survive if you fight for her.

Nationalism, fascism, and demagogues have crushed lesser democracies.  But your America, where half of you voted for hope over fear, need not suffer that fate.  Listen deeply to the fears of your neighbor who voted for Trump.  Your weapons are freedom of thought, reason, and discourse. Over 50 million angry, frustrated, scared Americans live amongst us.  You can demand they salute and support the ideals of America-- freedom, equality, acceptance, love, charity, and a belief in the greater good over naked self-interest--in spite of their frustration and anger, and you can marshal those shared ideals to fight together for America's survival.

Your America can and must survive.  But she needs your open heart, steel spine, and clear head today.