For years Robert has been despairing over what he perceives as an economic, political and moral decline of the USA, harrowingly reminiscent in the political arena of what occurred during the 120 years leading to the fall of the Roman Republic.
Nineteen year old son Benjamin is taking off the first quarter of his junior year at University of Chicago to work full time (eighty hour per week as it turns out) for the Obama campaign as an organizer in the North West Philadelphia suburbs. He chooses to work 80 hours per week. He was home Labor Day for the first day off in over a month.
In reference to his work, Benjamin explained that everyone has a mindset concerning the upcoming election and he can quickly determine what it is by asking: What are the three most important reasons for supporting the candidate of your choice?
Robert responded he supports Barack Obama because 1) He has extricated us from the outlandish Iraq War and is well on the way to doing the same in Afghanistan; 2) Through the stimulus of the National Recovery Act, Obama prevented a national and possibly world wide depression and would have had us back on the road to prosperity were it not for the purposeful undermining by the Republican House of his proposed jobs programs; and 3) As imperfect as it had to be, Obama achieved some meaningful health care reform, something that for over sixty years both Democrat and Republic presidents had sought to do.
Robert went on to deplore the extremism of the right wing of the Republican Party, a party he had belonged to and even helped lead until he switched in 2001 out of disgust with “W” and his cohorts.
Robert foresees an escalating Republican unwillingness to work with others, demonizing of opponents, disrespect for political precedents, the willful destruction of the middle class, a self serving autocracy with a small group of billionaires and ideologues in control, and possibly someday a second revolutionary war to overthrow them.
It was then that Benjamin looked Robert in the eyes and said “It is for my generation to deal with these problems.”
For the first time in years, Robert felt a heavy load lifted and had hope for the future.
