Yesterday the United States of America entered into Chapter 46 of our Nations history of Presidents. As with each changing chapter there will be about half of the country who are full of anguish as their candidate lost the election, this is the reality of a Democratic Republic. Many of those on the losing side will not accept anything done by the new administration and will stew in their anger. They will unfortunately not put aside their differences and try to find common ground. Each chapter this seems to get worse and I wonder how long the Republic can continue to function for all Americans when there is so much strife and division.
Take as an example the Keystone pipeline decision, for many this is an intolerable decision, they want the pipeline built and they do not care that it will endanger other Americans in the process. They also believe that cancelling it will raise gas prices, which is a possibility, however the last 4 years have shown that gas prices can stay low without the pipeline. The point of the pipeline itself is to get the oil to the gulf where it can be sold to other countries, not sold in the US. If they wanted to sell it in the US they could build a refinery plant at the Canadian Border and give us a safe source of petroleum products not in danger every hurricane season. A refinery that could also process the oil from North Dakota. This would create more jobs than just building a pipeline, a refinery would mean long term jobs for the foreseeable future.
But the problem is that people on both sides of the political spectrum have become so single minded in their support for their political beliefs, that the idea of compromise and common ground has been murdered. I pray that President Biden can revive compromise in the leadership of our nation. That we can make progress on issues that will benefit the majority of Americans. I also pray that the events of Jan 6 are behind us and armed insurrections will not tear us further apart.