Last week I wrote in this letter, “Regardless of the election outcome, we keep doing what we’re doing now, because we must.”
Yesterday, I posted on my CE social media pages, saying
“The values that drive this administration’s work will not change. We push back against wedges that divide our people. We listen and govern for all.
“We will peacefully accept the results of the election, watch carefully as the new administration acts on its agenda, and take a stand when our values call on us to do so.”
It’s what we’ve always done in this country, and it’s what we’ll continue to do.
I sent an email to my staff acknowledging the hurt felt by some, the pain of knowing that the American people chose for its next President a person whose words either threatened or denigrated a group they are part of. As a team, we must support one another, and we will.
Anne Arundel County voted consistently for Republican Presidential candidates for nearly fifty years before the Trump era. Trump lost our county by 2 points in 2016, 14 points in 2020, and 10 points this week.
Nationally, Trump’s win was decisive. If he delivers on his campaign promises, the impacts on county governments, state governments, and federal agencies will be major. And the impacts on our most vulnerable residents, the ones in the bottom two-thirds of the economic scale, could be devastating. My administration will do our best to protect the interests of all of our residents.
Those of us who work in the arena of public service and politics will be studying the messages sent by the voters in this election for some time. One thing that’s clear to me is that trust in government leaders across the world is low, and we must somehow reconnect people to their governments.
Another thing that’s becoming clear is that we are all having trouble seeing through the membranes of our information bubbles, including me. I’m not interested in entering a different bubble, particularly when the basic premises of that bubble violate my moral principles, but I need to enter the space between bubbles and look from a distance at them all.
I remember in college that while studying the transitions between democracy and authoritarianism in Latin American countries, I came to the conclusion that we didn’t actually have democracy in the United States. I was convinced that control of our political parties by the donor class made us something short of democracy. I didn’t trust our government.
Is that closer to where today’s electorate is? Do they see the flaws in our system that our political elite is blind to? Will they eventually force us to an even more pure embodiment of governing of, by, and for the people?
Looking at the global picture and at history certainly offers clues to what is going on today, and that’s important, but most people don’t have the time or the interest to ponder those things.
Here in our little microcosm of America, we get to actually do the work of figuring this all out in practice. We’re engaging our residents in decision-making, speaking directly to them with a level of transparency that surprises many, and even creating a new system of campaign finance that will offer candidates in our next local election an opportunity to operate outside the large donor environment.
Most importantly, we are constantly working to align our actions with our values, universal values that human beings everywhere believe in.
We are wired to be resilient, creative, and strong. We will evolve toward peace.
Until next week …