Dear dads in the GOP,
Like you, I want what’s best for my children. Like some of you, I want what’s best for all children. But unlike politicians and pundits, I have spent my career getting past the political rhetoric from all sides and focusing on facts. Some of you know this from our meetings on Capitol Hill.
This Father’s Day, I hope you will take just a moment to hear -- and truly consider -- this message from me.
As dads, our greatest responsibility is to build a stronger, better society for our children, so that they won’t have to undergo the same struggles we have. This includes making health care available and affordable to everyone. It includes making paid family leave insurance a reality -- something the overwhelming majority of your own party wants. It means working to eradicate all forms of bigotry, including sexism and racism. And it means trusting scientists who understand and acknowledge what’s happening in the environment.
On all of these fronts, your party is going in the wrong direction -- for short-term gain, but long-term disaster.
Your support for a president who excites sexists, racists, white supremacists and other xenophobes is bad enough. But now you’re busy pushing a destructive health care bill that would make life worse for millions of Americans -- including fathers who love their children just as you do, but who don’t have the resources you’re blessed with.
The temptation to go down the wrong path can be powerful for anyone. The feeling of popularity (election victories) and a sense of moral superiority can surely be intoxicating. And you have your own careers and financial futures to think about.
But as Father’s Day approaches, please take time to think further ahead. Think about your progeny. When future generations look back, will they see you as having made the world better or worse? Will they be proud to carry your name and legacy, or run from it? How will you fit into their narratives of family history? How do people who stood on the wrong side of history factor into family narratives today?
You still have time to turn around. You can prioritize doing the right thing over doing what’s momentarily popular to some cheering, extremist voters who believe fake news. You can read and consider real news, the kind of truth-telling that serves as such an existential threat to President Trump. You can listen to other voters, the American majority desperately clamoring for you to place country over party.
At this time, it’s hard to have hope. But as Father’s Day approaches, I’m allowing myself to hope that some among you may make this turn.
When you open your mind, learn facts, and reconsider your actions, it’s amazing what you can accomplish -- for your children and all children.
