For All Flesh

Norman Rockwell's, The Right to Know

On this election eve, there was a typically provocative tweet from a certain Ms. Coulter that if only those whose four Grandparents were born in the United States were allowed to vote, the vote would be a landslide for Donald Trump. My father would not be able to vote under this rule as his Grandfather was born in Britain.

I responded on Facebook and Twitter, and I repeat here.

This is what needs to change tomorrow. A multi-cultural majority nation will take the place of a White, Anglo-Saxon, Christian dominated nation. The Constitutional principles were intended for the universe of mankind. We can do this. Go, Latino Citizens! And ALL of us! WE the PEOPLE!

Yes, we elected a President eight years ago of mixed-race. Part of his ancestry went back to the European immigrants to this country. His father was from Kenya. The President was born in the State of Hawaii. His wife and daughters are the descendants of Slaves brought to this country by force.

We thought the election of Barack Obama would herald a new awakening of American ideals among all our cultures and heritages. That did not happen. 

The Senate Majority leader still clings to dreams of traditional, Southern conservative dominance. The Speaker of the House still quotes Ayn Rand, a selfish elitist if there ever was one. The candidate of the Republican Party is the product of the least-common denominator of a political base founded on fear, prejudice, and ignorance. Yes, many have been mistreated by the "system" and to some extent by the elites who fail to understand the struggles of ordinary citizens. 

Yet ordinary citizens include the hard-working Latinos who may be the ones to turn this election to our first woman president. Some of these are the children of undocumented immigrants who yearned to be free and prosperous in a land of opportunity. Some have been here in the boundaries of our nation before any Anglos arrived on the Santa Fe Trail or the long treks to California on the Pacific. This is a nation of many peoples. E Pluribus Unum. And the Hispanics have been the target of the fear-mongering of the Republican candidate.

And not just the Latinos. Muslims have been targeted even though the smallest fraction of them are potential terrorists which pretty well matches up with the potential terrorism of angry, reactionary, white Americans that gave us the Oklahoma City bombing along with many other incidents of murder and terror. White terrorism.

And not just the Muslims, but Sikhs and Hindus and others mistaken for Muslims have been targeted in the fear-induced fantasies of some who have committed acts of horrific violence.

And the traditional brothers and sisters of the American Judeo-Christian heritage, American Jews, have also been the target of hate crimes.

And our African-American brothers and sisters, threatened with voter suppression and a resurgent alt-right and self-avowed neo-nazis and KKK trumpeting their support for the Republican candidate.

Our Native American sisters and brothers have been mistreated with disrespect to their sacred land and waters.

This will and must end tomorrow as we elect our first woman president. Not a Saint, but a hard-working and crafty political operative who has, I believe, the best interests of the nation as a whole - and the world - deep in her heart. Sure, she's cut some corners. So did Abraham Lincoln in becoming President, then freeing the Slaves, passing the Thirteenth Amendment, and winning the Civil War.

We will hold her feet to the fire. The people, all the people, We the People, will hold her accountable as we never could have done with the rogue of a man nominated by the Republicans who can't even be trusted to manage his own twitter account.

The principles of the Constitution are divinely inspired, not just for property-holding white males, even some who believed they held property in other humans of a different skin tone. No, the purpose of the Constitution was that 

it is not right that any man [or woman] should be in bondage one to another.

And it

should be maintained for the rights and protection of all flesh

All flesh. All humankind. All of us. We the People.

We will prove ourselves tomorrow.

God bless America!