John T. Broderick Jr. is the former dean of UNH Franklin Pierce School of Law and the founder of the Warren B.
Rudman Center for Justice, Leadership and Public Policy. These are very uncomfortable and uncertain times in America, that’s hard to deny. You are either exuberant about the political and cultural change that is taking hold or despondent about it.
There seems no middle ground. Apparently, everyone is expected to suit up and pick a side. There’s nothing ordinary or predictable about where we find ourselves today.
There’s nothing reassuring. This is unlike any “change of party” election I ever remember. I think that’s because the most recent election cycle was not really about party or even politics.
It was about something deeper than that, something more personal, more intrinsic, more revealing and more important. It was about how we see ourselves, our values, our national fingerprint, our choices and our fears in a deeply divided and entrenched America and, more importantly, how we see and treat each other, especially those who disagree with us. It’s not about President Trump, it really isn’t.
He got 77 million votes and he won the election. No, it’s not about him, it’s about us. We’re the problem — and the solution.
All of us. We need to bridge our growing divide and take ownership when it cripples us. The everyday norms and expectations that ordered our nation’s life for decades have changed, or at least it feels that way.
I believe that w.
