What Unites Us

 

What Unites Us – by Dan Rather and Elliot Kirschner

One thing that many Americans, past and present, tend to believe is that the country of the United States is in “horrible” shape and they yearn for the days of yore.  Yes, people believe that about our current day, but this was a popular sentiment back in the 70s, 80s, 90s, and 00s as well.  I’m sure it was true of decades before that, but I wasn’t alive to recollect.  To be honest, now that our country has so much loyalty to a former president with no credibility whining his election was “stolen”, I tend to think the same thing.  When did “truth” become anything you WANT it to be? Regardless of how ridiculous your claims sound?

Anyway, Dan Rather has penned a nice, short book of memories and reflections that tend to offer some optimism. This isn’t necessarily an “everything is o.k.” book, but neither is it “we’re already in Armageddon” book either. In addition to his observations about much of the political climate around him, Rather also reflects an awful lot about his childhood growing up during the depression in Houston, Texas. He has a very good attitude despite some things that have happened, and he always seems optimistic.  Sure, he sees things around him that go against the grain of America, but he doesn’t bemoan these facts for very long.  Many times his message is: “We’ve been here before, we’ve always prevailed, and we can continue to do so if we do the right thing and not blindly follow leaders and/or politicians that only blow wind.” So a lot of this book is geared towards the characteristics that people, and the country as a whole, must hold to ensure that stability and righteousness will prevail.

Since Dan Rather is one of the most well-known journalists of the last 50 years, he knows how to articulate himself quite well. He’s mastered the art of saying an awful lot with as few words as possible. He knows how to keep his audience from becoming bored. This short book has a total of nine chapters with titles such as “The Vote”, “Empathy”, and “Science”. Again, he manages to weave all of this together with defining characteristics that can truly mend our nation.  Because of the brevity and concentration of this book, one could easily read the entire thing over a weekend.

In all fairness, this book was written in 2017 when Trump became president, yet before he started to sink the nation. During Trump’s presidency, Dan Rather was active on social media and was quite vocal about Trump’s ridiculous behavior and illegal gaffes, so I’m not sure exactly how different this book would have been had it been written a few years later.  Because of the current state of the political climate, one has to seriously consider that Rather might not have such an optimistic bent as he did when this book was released. 

Still, though, the book as a lot of great anecdotes and observations. Although he keeps this book from being political, you can be sure that people who never liked him will find things to fault in the book.  Whatever. One wishes people weren’t so obdurate and be able to see error when it’s shining brightly right in their face. If they did, they just might be tempted to emulate many of the characteristics Rather puts forward in this book, and just might find that our country could have the ability to heal.