Editor’s note: This article was submitted for publication Fall 2018. This is a late upload.
By: Rev. David Wilson Rogers
Over three decades ago I was a 19-year-old, fresh out of high school, new Freshman at Eastern New Mexico University and was ready to take on the world. So, I ran for, and won a seat on the Associated Students of ENMU Student Senate. For three years I held the seat and obtained a well-deserved reputation of being a rabble-rouser, swing-vote wielding, contentious senator. I must admit, in the day, it served my ego well. Fortunately, I eventually grew up.
My stint in student politics culminated when I won the seat of Vice President of ASENMU and took the gavel for my Senior year at Eastern. That one year with the gavel in my hand taught me a lot. I will never forget one incident where the students were staging a massive, and completely justified, student protest in response to the inauguration of a controversial University President. The student leader of the protest was in my office demanding that I help energize the protest and stand with the students. Rather than accept his well-intended, and very attractive offer, I chose to ask him and his followers to accept an alternative protest that was very visible, but not at all disruptive. His answer cut me to the quick. “I don’t understand you Dave,” he said with an unrelentingly angry passion. “A year ago, you would have been breaking down doors to make this protest happen. Now you are asking me to subdue it? What changed?”
What changed was where I now sat. I saw Student Government from a different perspective and was able to take in the bigger picture rather than just react to the legitimate student anger in the moment. It was not that I disagreed with the protest. I fully supported the cause. What I opposed was the method—an out-of-control demonstration of student rage that would only serve to give the whole University a black eye.
In the 30 years since that conversation, I have also seen a lot of change in my life and on the national political stage. After college, I struggled in the job market and ultimately joined the US Coast Guard. After military service, I completed a Master’s degree and moved back to New Mexico. Today, I am completing a second Master’s degree at Eastern. Over 30 years ago I entered college during the Reagan administration. Since then I’ve seen Presidents GH Bush, Clinton, GW Bush, Obama, and now Trump. I watched in horror as Speaker Newt Gingrich and the Republican party pushed their incredulous Contract with America upon the land—a contract that felt like an attack on America to many. I remember a similar disdain as I watched Obama and the Democrats do the same with Affordable Care Act—a health care reform that was much needed, but because of politics was also poorly designed and much maligned.
It was with unrelenting dismay that I watched the resurgence of White racism and xenophobic nationalism dramatically increase in response to the Obama presidency only to be given legitimacy under the populist banter of the Trump Campaign, and subsequent presidency of Donald Trump.
Today, we live in a nation that is more bitterly divided than I have ever seen it in my 51 years on this earth. Anger, hatred, and incivility are the dominant political weapons of the day. Blame it on social media, Fox News, MSNBC, the Trump tweets, the Tea Party, or Liberal elites—it does not change the reality. Americans have truly learned the art of hate. Partisan loyalty is more important than national pride. Tribal allegiance determines human dignity.
I recall my days as an outspoken, arrogant, egotistical senator in the ASENMU Senate. While it did feel good to my ego in the moment, it was not always the best thing for Eastern or the Students who elected me to serve. Thankfully, I grew up. I changed. I learned that there is more to leadership than being right or having power and control. I learned that elected leaders serve more than the few people who voted for them. Rather, they serve the greater good—people who support them and those who do not. True leaders serve the whole, not just the base.
America is one nation—for now—and as the election in 2018 draws near, it is vital that we hold candidates accountable to national loyalty over partisan politics. It is vital that we support candidates who are willing to serve all the voters and not just the few who support them. It is essential that we elect candidates that are willing to listen to, and understand, the whole picture and not just the biased versions one may get from politically-charged media sources.
Perhaps it is time that we turn off social media, ignore the TV commercials, refuse to watch the news, and trash the direct mail political advertisements that bombard our consciousness. It is time we take a page from the ‘old school’ of politics that I remember from the 1970s. In years past, Washington DC politicians were known to frequent the golf courses. Republicans and Democrats together on the same green, talking shop while they knocked balls down the way. Sure, they disagreed most of the time and they always leaned toward partisan interests. Yet they were also willing to see and truly understand the other side.
Perhaps we need to sit down and really listen to each other again. We do not have to agree, but we can at least listen. We do not have to change our minds, but we can at least truly understand why someone else will legitimately believe differently and respect that reality. Imagine a conversation where understanding the other’s perspective to precedence over proving oneself right and the other wrong. Imagine a conversation where facts were researched and insults were banned. Imagine a political discussion where humanity was fully upheld!
The college students of today will be leading the world in 30 years. Perhaps I can say that my generation did a poor job of getting the upcoming generation on board. As I reflect back on the last three decades of my life and the world my generation has helped create, I recognize the mistakes my generation has made and genuinely apologize. So, college students today, I ask you as one who has learned the hard way. Are you willing to listen and learn, to understand diversity and embrace difference as my generation has so miserably failed to do? Or, will you follow in our errant footsteps and perpetuate this culture of hate and fear—one that we have undeservedly dumped upon you.
