With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility
So, today Democrats are celebrating all over America. We are the majority in the Senate and the House. So just what does this mean? This means our party has the opportunity to bring this country together, but only if we learn from the mistakes that were made by the ones in “power” before us. First of all, 52-48 does not mean that you are in “power”. It means that you have a great responsibility to bring this country together. If economists are correct, our country and our people are going to need to be incredibly strong in the coming years. To me, that means more than ever we need Representatives and Senators that are able to “work both sides of the aisle” to get meaningful legislation passed that makes our country stronger. We no longer need the rhetoric of “God, Guns, and Gays.” Those debates may be passionate but at the end of the day there are few who will change their minds. We need meaningful dialogue about the health care crisis in this country, the Iraq War and the damage that it is doing to another generation of young men and women, and the economic future of our country which is tied closely to the education crisis that we face. These are the problems that need solutions. This is where our leaders should be looking for like-minded Senators and Representatives that can find common ground so that we can move our country forward, instead of polarization and stagnation.
Will our newly elected leaders heed this lesson from their predecessors and change the way that the Beltway does business? I can only hope. And I do have great hope because when I sat at a table across from Tim Ryan and later, across from Sherrod Brown I heard them both say that working with the opposite party was key to getting meaningful legislation passed. I hope that they keep that tenet now that Democrats are in the majority. And, I think they will. I know that I intend to continue to remind them that they said that an important factor to bring our country together was to work together. Because, we can no longer afford more of the same.
Although I have put the “with great power comes great responsibility” phrase at the feet of elected officials, I would challenge the voting public that the greater power is yours-we all demonstrated that fact yesterday. And now, the greater responsibility is ours. We need to make sure that these elected officials understand that they work for us, and therefore, we need to make it known to them the issues where we want them to focus their efforts. Because when they enter the beltway, life changes. It is our responsibility to remind them of their roots and their vision and why they said they wanted to serve us. When you get far away from home, sometimes you forget things and you need to be reminded. That is our role and responsibility.
Tim tells me that the phrase above should be attributed to Uncle Ben talking to Peter Parker, Spiderman Comics. I thought it came from some great stateman. Maybe it did, but it made its way into Pop Culture and that is a good thing. Doesn’t it just put it all in perspective? We should never take ourselves too seriously, and we should always remember that the ability to laugh at ourselves and to see the irony in life makes it easier to take when the going gets tough.