Dear friends,
Instead of our usual year-end letter, weâve decided to speak from our hearts about the current election and what it means to us.

Weâve written this essay togetherâsharing our spiritual concerns and our extensive analysis of the situation. Itâs divided into five sections:
- How did we get here?
- Personality vs. Character/Morality.
- Who benefits from our disconnection, confusion, and disillusionment?
- Values worth dying for?
- The concerns we have are not going away (no matter who wins).
We hope youâll receive our letter in the spirit that weâve written itâas an invitation to ongoing inquiry. Our country is at a crucial turning point.
How did we get here?
Many of us are distressed with the current state of American politics, the ugliness, the bitterness, the distrust of the media, the candidates, the Congress, each other.

When Richmond and I were young adults, we trusted our parents, our family doctor, our banker, our teachers, and our neighbors. We respected news people like Walter Cronkite or Bill Moyers and their investigative journalism. We used to feel connected to our larger world. But extreme mobility and digital media have broken down that sense of community and connectedness.  Now everything has become âentertainment:â news, food, sports, gun violence. Weâre texting, Instagramming, Facebooking, Tweeting, running to keep up, grasping for diversions. Weâre accomplished but exhausted, successful but soul-weary.
Many Americans spend more time viewing and reading about sports events than they do about the workings of our government. Retired Supreme court Justice David Suter, in 2012, spoke about “Civic Ignorance” and how it puts democracy at risk. He expressed the fear that an autocratic leader could exploit discontent and seize power by promising to fix dysfunctional government.
Bit by bit, what used to give our lives meaning has been eroded. Advertising tells us weâre not good enough. Media shows us there are only winners and losers. The implicit assumption is that power and force alone win the day. Family dynamics in movies and on TV show competition, cynicism and sarcasm instead of loyalty, caring, hope and generosity of spirit.  The world as the media presents it often seems evil, untrustworthy, and downright scary.
In politics, widespread gerrymandering has resulted in extreme candidates who support partisan stagnation, and fail to perform basic functions like appointing judges, funding government operations, and working towards viable solutions to our state and national problems. Lobbyists are paid more than our legislators and their staff combined (and there are 23 lobbyists for every person in Congress). Elected officials spend more time raising campaign money than they do preparing bills or deliberating on legislation. Everyone, including our representatives, is fed up.
Personality vs. Character
Two 2016 candidates used the discontent to challenge the political establishment. Ordinarily such grassroots-driven change would be cause for celebration of the democratic processâbut not so much this time. One so-called âpopulistâ candidate has appealed to fear, bigotry, hate, and a false nationalism that has rallied many to him for what he’s not: ânot a politicianâ, ânot politically correctâ, ânot elitistâ, and ânot a compromiser.â Perhaps more hopefully, Bernie Sanders won major changes in the Democratic platform and pulled Hillary back to her Progressive roots.
Quakers have a saying, “Let your life speak.” None of us live up to our ideals all of the time, but it does matter that we learn from our mistakes. Weâve looked into the records of both candidates. Hillary Clinton is a career politician whose accomplishments and failures are very public, but sheâs got a long record of service and caring for the poor and the middle class and the experience and temperament to lead and govern.
Donald Trump, on the other hand, has the appearance of success in business, but the more one learns about him, the less there is to like or respect. Heâs a savvy and skillful promoter of new enterprises. But 1/3 of his ventures have been outright failures. Another 1/3 have been marginal at best, and 1/3 have âmet expectationsâ according to the New York Times. Heâs presided over six bankruptcies that represent about $4.7 billion in losses to his investors and creditors. He openly brags that he personally made money as those companies failed. Just this month the Trump Taj Mahal closed. Though Forbes Magazine estimates Trumpâs current net worth at $3.7 billion, economist Robert Reich has calculated that the funds he received from his dad, if invested in an average performing portfolio, would now be worth $12 billion. His career is also besmirched by his predatory practices with vendors and contractors. Trump left a trail of unpaid bills and more than 3,500 litigations building his personal wealth. His crude remarks about women have dominated the headlines as we wrote this. His public speeches and appearances have been so full of misinformation and outright lies that he has set records with fact-checking organizations.

No major daily newspaper, and only 3 of the more obscure ones, have endorsed him. USA Today, The Atlantic Magazine and eight others have savagely denounced him. Yet he remains the GOP candidate for President with polls showing that 43% of voters will vote for him.
To us, itâs more alarming that his followers donât seem to care about Trumpâs lack of merit or character. Many say they just want to elect him because âhe will shake upâ Washington. They quickly segue into a rant about Hillary as representing all that is corrupt and wrong with establishment politics. But, if you âburn the house downâ to dispatch the vermin, then what?
We note that the Trump campaign staff was recently restructured at the insistence of the Mercer family, one of Trumpâs billionaire backers. The short version of a longer story is that the Mercers want somebody in the White House who wonât mess with Wall Street and specifically who won’t impose a transaction tax to make flash trading unattractive.  Since the Citizens United decision, big money has been a problem, but the Koch brothers and the Mercers are now directing campaigns and the votes of successful candidates for narrow self-serving purposes.
Perception is a tricky matter. What we âseeâ depends on what weâre looking for and where we stand. When Iâm fearful and exhausted, I see danger at every turn and deceit in every person. When Iâm feeling more bouyant, I see possibility, and other people represent hope and support. We constantly decry negative campaigning, but it works because negativity and characterizations are so contagious. A colleague says, âMy boss is a jerk,â and itâs all too easy to agree without any facts. We assume characterizations are based on evidence, but actually we make the characterization in anger, and then begin to collect evidence to support it.
Throughout Obamaâs Presidency, some peopleâs perceptions were constantly jarred because they were not expecting to see a Black man accorded the perquisites of power.  (Consider how differently you and others you know might perceive a white Marine holding a rain umbrella for our Black president.) The Guardian, a conservative British magazine, not historically a Hillary fanâdid an in-depth analysis of Clintonâs fundraising and policy positions and finally concluded that Clinton was âfundamentally honest and truthful.â PolitiFact did an exhaustive analysis of Clinton and all the other candidatesâand consistently found her to be âthe most honest of this yearâs presidential candidates,â yet according to Harvardâs Kennedy School of Government, she has received more negative media coverage than either Sanders or Trump.  Robin Lakoff, a professor of linguistics at UC Berkeley observed that, âWith Hillary everything she does is either different from what men do and itâs âwrong,â or itâs the same things that men do and thatâs âwrong,â and thatâs because the underlying thing about Clinton and her candidacy is itâs not normal. âNormalâ is a male candidate, a male voice, a male tie.â (see an excellent article from Rolling Stone, Oct., 2016, âHillary Vs. the Hate Machineâ ) Is perception equivalent to reality? Since Lee Atwater first said it, political strategists claim it is.
Who benefits from our disconnection, confusion and disillusionment?
Is there a global conspiracy thatâs destroying our American way of life? Are low-wage workers in developing countries stealing our jobs? Are corporations only rapacious and exploitative? What happened to the social certainties in life, where men were men and women were women and they liked it that way ⌠where people âknew their placeâ and were respectful?  Where are the âjust warsâ where the enemy is clear and the cause worth dying for? Where are the alternatives where thereâs clearly a right and a wrong choice? When did we stop âloving our neighborsâ and being âour brotherâs keeperâ?
Letâs explore the question of âwho benefits?â If weâre a nation divided, seduced by drama and diversions, fear and uncertainty, how much more easily we fall into scapegoating others instead of seeing the huge injustices against all of us. Â A university study representing the population of the USA as 100 people showed that, during the slow economic recovery 2009-2013, the one richest individual would have acquired $9.10 of every $10 generated, while the 99 of us got the remaining 90 cents! Â Or looking from another perspective, real wages for the middle class have stalled since the mid-70âs, but during the same period, âwages for the top 1% have risen 165% and wages for the top 0.1% have risen 362%.â (Thomas Piketty quote)Â In the words of Abraham Lincoln, âA house divided against itself will not stand.â When weâre divided as a nation, our allies despair and our enemies delight!
Values Worth Dying For?
Our soldiers are sworn to defend the US Constitution with their lives if necessary. It’s up to each of us to ensure that the values enshrined therein are honored so this nation merits the ultimate sacrifice. There is far more to it than just wearing a flag pin.
Who, lately, can relax and enjoy day dreaming, playing, thinking, laughing, or just calling a friend spontaneously? The news is full of corporate exploitation (the Epi-pen scandal and the Wells Fargo scam being the latest as we write this). With an eight figure annual compensation package, what could a CEO lack that would explain such greed? If Iâm all alone with no sense of a community that cares about me, if my vote is meaningless and my voice isnât heard, if one believes that thereâs only winners and losers (me vs. you) ̜  then working endlessly to get all I can and fighting to hold onto it makes perfect senseâespecially when some are so obviously âgaming the system.â From this perspective, civic duty, personal character, stewardship, and kindness seem like quaint, outdated sentiments.
How difficult it is to see clearly when we are constantly bombarded with distorted messages, with lies repeated over and over until they sound ânormalâ and âtrue,â with memes that areâwell, mean!  The sophisticated systems for slicing and dicing us by our interests and preferences are legion: what magazines we read, what pages we âclickâ through to on our computers, what products we buy, our income levels â all types of personal information is gathered. Marketers have been parsing market segments for a long time. Now political campaigns have brought these techniques to a new high (or low) so that our perceptions can be cleverly manipulated.
The 20th Century is over, and we sense that the 21st Century is taking a new direction. As teacher and futurist Joanna Macy has said for many years, âThis is the time of the Great Turning [away from a consumption society towards an earth-preserving society].â

As activist and commentator Van Jones has observed, âWe will either turn on each other or towards each other.â The paths have been diverging for a long time and are now irreconcilableâand as poet Robert Frost declared, âAnd that [which path we choose] will make all the difference.â
Richmond recently observed, âEveryone is a minority.â Weâre easily confused and defeated when weâre isolated from each other, but evidence is now robust that when all members of a group participate in decisions, those decisions are stronger and more relevant to all our needs. Quakers have practiced consensus â finding the sense of the meeting â for centuries. The fact is we are interconnected, intimately bound to every other person in our humanity and our well being. (âAll of us together are a genius,â Lynne Twist has famously said.) How can we learn to listen for our commonality instead of our differences? As supporters for Clinton (or Bernie) or Trump, we all love this country, want a better future for our children, are frustrated with the deadlock in Congress, seek meaning in our work and our relationships. We need each otherâs wisdom and experience, but we must work together to benefit from it.
America is worth dying for when out leaders play to our highest aspirations and shared vision. It’s not worth it when our leaders play to greed and manipulate us with fear .
The issues that concern us are not going away

No matter who is elected President, the issues that divide us are not going away. We urge you to prayerfully consider your vote, and then vote for something, not against something. There are no âperfect candidatesâ (thatâs an oxymoron like âperfect parentsâ or âperfect childrenâ), but the character of the person whoâs at the top of the ticket does matterâas well as the character of candidates all the way to the bottom of the ticket.
In the spirit of full disclosure, we have historically split our votes when choosing candidates, but this year weâre voting a straight Democratic ticket. Why? Because after careful analysis, the facts show that:
- Over the past 64 years, when the Democratic party controlled the White House (from Eisenhower to Obama), every economic indicator was betterâproductivity, wages, the stock market, the pace of the unemployment rateâs decline, the rate of economic growth. (Source: Mark Watson and Alan Blinder, Princeton U. professors of economics)
- Tax cuts and trickle-down economics havenât worked despite 30 years of âtestingââask the citizens of Kansas, whose Governor promised a âmarch to zeroâ taxes and huge economic growth with tax cuts and austerity âand instead delivered an economic catastrophe! When George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton raised taxes, we experienced a surge in economic growth.
- Now, eight years later, itâs clear the âdreadedâ and much maligned Economic Stimulus Package did avoid another Great Depression, created jobs, avoided a budget deficit that would have been twice what it currently is, and build hundreds of new bridges and hundreds of miles of re-paved highwaysâwithout spiking inflation or causing deflation (Source: those same Princeton U. economists, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, and Goldman Sachs, among others)
- Those who work hardest to eliminate poverty are the poor people themselves. There are always those who exploit the system, but it appears that the significant âwelfare Queensâ are special interests who use âthe commonsâ but donât participate in what it takes to make the commons thrive for future generations.
- Obamacare isnât perfect and the Social Security âtrust fundâ is declining, but the answer isnât scrapping these essential programs but working across-the-isle to address what doesnât work based on evidence, not emotion.

Recently, in a Tennessee wedding catererâs storefront chapel, we saw a sign that said, âAs two families are becoming one, we ask that you choose a seat and not a side.â This sounds like pretty good advice for this political season.  When the election is over, our democracy needs us allâour active engagement, our constructive criticisms, our vote, our voice, our willingness to stay at the tableâand to make room at the table for those unlike ourselves. Our greatness as a country is in our diversity. Unless weâre full blooded indigenous people, weâre all descended from immigrants whose courage and vision got us here and whose creativity and tenacity allowed us to become successful here.
As we made phone calls and canvassed door-to-door, we were struck at the enthusiasm of the folks voting for Hillary and at the anger of those voting against Hillary or for Trump. None of us makes our best decisions in a mood of anger. We strongly believe that our democracy will be safe with Hillary Clinton and at grave risk with Donald Trump. This election is not about personality – it’s about the character of the candidates and the values they model. We pray, not for political victory, but for the highest good of all concerned.
As Quakers, we seek âthat of God in every person.â We invite you to join us in âminding the Light â in ourselves and each other, so that we keep the flame of democracy burning brightly. As one of the tellers at the National Storytelling Festival said last week, âFaith is light in your heart when all your eyes can see is darkness.â Letâs keep faith with our democracy. Our election process isnât an athletic competition. America is great. We remain the worldâs best and strongest hope for a fair, just, inclusive, thriving future.
Weâd love to hear your thoughts. We also hope youâll take our essay and discuss it with othersâor take the bits that resonate with you and write to your friends. Our democracy needs every voiceâif we can learn to listen with mutual respect and open hearts.
Peace,
Marguerite and Richmond
October 24, 2016
“And the work of generosity shall be peace, and the effect of generosity will be quietness and security forever.” Isaiah 32:17

FEAR — Since the beginning of the campaign, when Newt Gingrich gave the keynote speech at the GOP Freedom Summit, our fears have been in play. It’s important to understand the psychology and neurology that makes fear mongering such a potent tool in politics. Indeed, it affects us profoundly individually and collectively. Plus, we humans are not very good at assessing real vs. perceived risk. Lee Atwater famously said that perception is reality.
I highly and enthusiastically recommend reading Why We’re Living in the Age of Fear (Rolling Stone Magazine)