Restore US

I am Andy Neslund.  Today I am fifty-four, within a glimpse of the Golden Years ahead.  Yet, suddenly, this Election at hand, I can’t breathe. I feel the weight of the world upon me. Don’t you too?

I have been a stay-at-home Dad for my wonderful kids the last twenty-eight years.  My wife has worked, supporting our family while being an incredible Mother all that time. My youngest will graduate from high school this spring. Normally, it would be time for me to move on and set up a comfortable retirement with my wife.  But through the course of interactions with my children this political season, I have been struck with this reality:  I am not finished yet. Far from it.  Within my family’s little world, I have done well raising young people I am proud to launch as the next generation.  But in a more global sense, I have failed them.  We have failed them.  We have dumped on them, through our own inaction, impossible political choices, contrary to their upbringing, that encourage things like voting for corruption, lack of integrity, “me first, I’m right, everybody else is wrong, ram it down their throat” kind of thinking.  We risk their cynicism and separation from a once enlightened democratic process that made us envied in the world.  This separation is surely the fast track to our own demise.  Think of it, our children’s own demise.  I mean, “Everyone lies.  Everyone cheats.  Everyone is corrupt.  Everyone is bought. Everyone is played.” Right?  

Wrong!  That is what today’s politicians live on.  But the truth is, it’s not the politicians’ fault.  It’s ours.  Because we, as voters, have always had the power to right the ship, but we have not done it.  We, the Baby Boomers and GenXers of the past nearly four score years, are not finished yet, not by a long shot.  We - who make up an enormous part of America’s voting population, who are decent, hard working, common sense people, who have devoted our lives to raising a wave of precious, smart, idealistic, talented, fun, active, young people we call Millennials - we have finally got to stand up and demonstrate to our children those values we have worked so hard to instill in them: Honesty, Fairness, Courage, Decency, Integrity, Cooperation, Sharing, Compromise, and the like.

We have put our every resource and all our time into what we deemed best for our kids, and have enjoyed together with them the immense pleasures, privileges, and opportunities of living in America today. But we have also faltered.  We have sat silently by. We are the Silent Majority. We have allowed our political system to deteriorate over the course of these many years into what it is today: acceptance of lying, cheating, corruption, demeaning vitriol, and more. This cannot be more clear than in the impending Presidential Election.  It is time.  In fact we all know it is the perfect time, for us to stand up with our Children, for the sake of our Children and this great country. We need to restore a culture of Honesty, Integrity and Courage into the leaders of America.  The most empowering tenet of being an American Citizen is having control of our constitutional destiny through election of our leaders.  The ingenious system of Representative Democracy our forefathers left us necessarily requires trust in those leaders.  The time has come for us to demand that trust.  As The People, We can do it.  But we have to stand up together.

I have an idea to help us.  It will make use of a website that begins a long-term process of “throwing out the bad eggs” of our political leadership.  We will mend ourselves by voting first and foremost for basic principles of character we can all agree on, regardless of our own political bent, principles that have nothing to do with our petty differences and everything to do with restoring honor to the leaders who serve us.  Because in our representative system of government, in which we elect individuals to make decisions for us, Honor is paramount.  In America, the surest way to resolving the differences between us, and solving the problems before us, is developing Trust in the leaders elected by us.

I am not running for office.  I am looking to save us from ourselves for the good of our children to come. I see this Election’s descent into the sewer as a unique opportunity to rise up into the light.  There has never been a better time to launch this movement.  This fact cannot be more clear: Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are bad eggs, Trump through his glaring lack of integrity, and Hillary through her blatant corruption.  For once, we know this.  This decision is obvious and easy. Make it. Bad eggs, throw them out.  Don’t vote for them.  Write them off.  Make a statement.  Ignore the back and forth our media thrives on.  Vote for anyone else.  No candidate is perfect, but Clinton and Trump are beyond the pale. Their campaigns have us believing this particular election matters most, i.e. “My vote for someone else is like a vote for Trump”, or on the other side, “Hillary.”  The truth is, it doesn’t matter.  Regardless of who is elected, the world will continue to spin madly on. We will be OK. Our democratic process of balanced government was designed to ensure this. Ruin comes not in the result of any one election but in the long-term degradation of trust in each other.  What is essential right now is to begin the process of healing ourselves.

I have bought a domain: RestoreUS.org.  It will be non-profit.  It will be non-partisan.  It will include everyone.  It will work.  I need the funds to get started: website design and maintenance, business startup, advertising, etc.  Please stand up and join me.  Donate here, and visit our sample site at RestoreUS.org .