OPINION - Grace From Obama, Clinton and Trump: A Silver Lining After Ugly Campaign Season

quoromcentre.com

Trump, Obama and Clinton

Here's an interesting piece from MIKE LUPICA  of The New York Daily News. 

A remarkable thing has happened over the past 48 hours, as remarkable as Donald Trump going from Trump Tower all the way to the White House: There has been a moment of grace in American politics, after the ugliest presidential campaign in the history of the country. And the only hope for the country, in this time of more great change, is that it is actually something on which to build for Donald Trump going forward, and for us all.

It began, of course, with Trump's own moment of grace, at the New York Hilton Midtown in the middle of the night, after it became official that he had defeated Hillary Clinton, and he spoke to the crowd about "a united people," after an election season as mean and divisive as it was long.

Trump also spoke to and about the people who really got him elected, an America that felt powerless and voiceless and constantly left behind.

"The forgotten people of our country will be forgotten no longer," he said.

This does not mean you un-ring all the bells he rang from the time he came down the escalator at Trump Tower in June 2015, something that feels as if it happened about four lifetimes ago, and a million Trump news cycles ago. It does not mean you give him a free pass because he won, a pass on walls or the Khan family or bans or Billy Bush. Still: That speech was a way for him and for us to start moving forward, unless we are supposed to keep prosecuting this campaign forever, or act as if this election is the end of everything.

But it was not only his victory speech, a few blocks away from where it began for him. It was Hillary Clinton's own speech the next day, the best of her public life. On this day, more than any she had on the campaign trail in 2008 or over this past year, Clinton showed the country her own best self, and perhaps even the greatness she might have brought with her back to the White House.

She spoke, honestly I believe, about how all Americans owed Donald Trump "an open mind and a chance to lead." And, really, if she can stand there and speak this way about being open-minded, after standing in there against him the way she did, why can't the rest of us do the same, whatever our beliefs and opinions about how we arrived at the reckoning of Tuesday night?

"I'm sorry that we did not win this election," she said, "for the values we share and the vision we hold for our country."

She fought back tears, as those in the crowd in front of her were unable to do the same. Then she left the stage, in all the big ways. Her husband's vice-president didn't get elected President, nor did she. She had gone up against a better candidate in Barack Obama eight years ago and now it has happened to her again.

Finally there was the meeting between President Obama and President-elect Trump in the White House on Thursday, the two men not only shaking hands after the way they had swung away at each other for years, but talking for an hour-and-a-half. Maybe it was nothing more than the ceremony of transition. It was still something to see even if we thought we'd never see anything like it in this world.

"I have been very encouraged by the interest in President-elect Trump's wanting to work with my team ... (on) many of the issues that this great country faces," Obama said. "I believe that it is important for all of us, regardless of party ... to come together."

"We are going to do everything we can to help you succeed," Obama said to Trump on a day neither one of them saw coming.

Donald Trump doesn't get a clean slate, not after this campaign. But what he does get is the chance to show everyone that maybe he can figure out how to be President the way he figured out how to be the presidential candidate who shocked the world.

You walked past Trump Tower in the morning on Thursday, with barriers everywhere and cops everywhere and television reporters, so many of them from other countries, doing standups on the west side of Fifth Ave. All around them the life of the city went on, the way the life of the country would later when Trump met with Obama.

There is no way of knowing how long this moment will last. But it has been one of grace, after such a graceless campaign. These past couple of days have been about our better selves. Maybe they really can be something on which to build. That may not be the way to bet. But it is the way to root. Anybody who wants the incoming President to fail is no better than those who wanted the exact same thing eight years ago for the guy he's about to replace. 

SOURCE - New York Daily News Updated: Thursday, November 10th, 2016. 6.37pm.
Retrieved by JuicyChitChats on Friday November 11th, 2016.