Inauguration

Inauguration Day! 

I cast my first vote in a presidential election for George W. Bush in 2004. I was horrified at the prospect of a Democrat taking over the presidency. I was fiercely Conservative, without fully knowing what that meant. I was pro-life, wanted people to help themselves rather than the government help them out, and felt the most important trait of a politician was whether they were a Christian. Democrats couldn't possibly be Christians--not the type I knew. 

Casting a vote for George W. Bush was like casting a vote for Jesus. It meant our country could remain a nation under God, rather than what the corruption of the world would have it be. 

In 2008, I abstained from voting.

In January 2009, my then-girlfriend-now-wife had a chance to attend Obama's Inauguration. Wow!

In 2012, I stood in line for nearly 4 hours at a gym in Rogers Park, Chicago to cast my presidential vote proudly for President Obama. 

Exposure to new people and places and ideas expanded me in ways I could never have imagined in high school. I had become a paradox. A person who had once said in an AP Gov class that "tolerance is a disease;" and a person who was now beginning to fully understand what we have become as a country and how much work there is to do to fix it. 

Even now, as I watch Biden's Inauguration, it feels strange that a man is delivering an invocation to the Christian God (still the God I believe in), but that so many watching do not recognize the God to whom he prays. 

We are a paradox. A Christian nation founded on the principle that you can follow any religion you want if you live here, but you have to be fine with your president being a Christian. We let Trump be president. And we have to figure out what to do with the fact that 75 million people voted for him this time around too. And we also let Lady Gaga sing the National Anthem at the Inauguration (she rocked). We are utterly simple and confoundingly complex. 

I guess I like that.

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