New to Nashville

Belmont Debate Viewing in Nashville, Tennessee

As an aside, I drafted this post weeks ago, but never finished it. Although it no longer has the same relevance as it once did, I still thought it worth sharing.

On October 22nd, Belmont University hosted the first presidential debate ever to take place in the state of Tennessee. Having just moved to Nashville, I was pumped when I found out. Moreover, I found a bipartisan debate viewing hosted by Deborah Wilson at Encore Condominiums downtown, so I went along…

I have to say, however, I was a little bummed by the debate discussion overall, which centered on race, religion, age and gender. Overall, the folks in attendance felt ill at ease (or perhaps uninterested) to discuss these concerns frankly. Discussion turned instead to health care, foreign policy, taxes, the economy, etc.

I post this today because I think it’s somehow prescient now that we’ve elected the next president of the United States. Going forward, there are some real issues facing us: a battered economy, an overstretched army abroad, a significant number of Americans without health care, etc. And now, just as before the election, those are the issues that matter. It’s not about red versus blue, black versus white, Democrat versus Republican, or any other us versus them dichotomy that matters. (In fact, from my experience at the bipartisan debate viewing, it never did to most people).

Perhaps I only speak for the moderates, but I was hard pressed to find people amongst my peers who thought any candidate throughout this (at times seemingly endless) presidential contest who truly embodied all of their views and could rightly bring them about.