Republicans, We Can Do Better

We all saw it. We all heard about it. 

The “send her back” chant at the Trump rally. And, for the most part, both Republican and Democrat alike agreed that it was disgusting, hateful, and it has no place in our party nor our politics.

In fact, these kinds of sayings have no place in our country. People are free to say them, but they are fundamentally un-American sentiments, contrary to the very core of this country’s founding and existence.

If we’re talking about making America great again, we need to remember exactly what makes this country so great. Calling for the deportation of an American citizen because we disagree with her speech is exactly the opposite of who we are.

America is a country of immigrants. We are the place that, for years, for centuries, has welcomed people fleeing danger. Since its inception, this country has been the place of freedom from areas of the world where tyranny reigns. While we have not been without our dark periods, the United States is still home to the most immigrants in the world.

We do not revoke a person’s citizenship, immigrant or not, because we do not like her beliefs. We should not entertain that idea — even in jest, as it seemed to be for some of the people who participated in the chant — because it is so against the basic principles for which this country stands. 

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Citizens of the United States are, of course, welcome to leave the country. They have the freedom to do so. But they will not be forced to leave. It’s not who we are as a country. And it’s not who we, as the Republican Party, are either.

We are the party founded on abolition from slavery. We have, since our very beginning, stood for the freedoms and rights of others when the rest of the nation did not. It is the nature of our history, and must be our path going forward. It’s who we always have been, and who we should strive to be in our future.

Republicans, we can do better than this. We can do better than going back on everything on which our party staked its very existence because of something a person said or believes. Fighting back on speech with which we disagree with hatred and bigotry will not help us win. Truthfully, if we continue in it, it’s exactly why we will lose.

We can win based on policy and principles. The Republicans I know, and hopefully the ones you know, stand with this party and this country not out of hatred, but because they believe in the policies and core beliefs. They believe in the principles on which we were founded and the policies for which we stand now.