Shortly after the November election I ordered a purple hat with the words “Country Over Party” on the front.  It’s a phrase that has become my mantra over the last 8 years and I have had it on the back of my truck window since 2022 and on the back of my motorcycle as well. 

Since getting it I have only ever had positive comments and compliments (same goes for the back of my truck and motorcycle).  I’ve worn the hat in Hawaii, New York, Dallas, and throughout the Southeast in just the last 5 months alone.    

On our recent family trip over spring break I wore it all across the Deep South as we traveled through Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Georgia and got positive comments from black folks at the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis (the old Lorraine Motel where Martin Luther King was assassinated), by old white ladies at the Graceland Museum in Memphis, and by a white man in Nashville at the Country Music Hall of Fame.  

Before going on the trip I was stressing because yet another government shut down loomed, this time potentially caused by the Democrats, and if so it meant that the national parks would have been shut down and we had plans to stop at Shiloh National Military Park, which is some place I’ve wanted to visit my whole life since I was a teenager.  

I know the Democratic base was livid with Senator Schumer for voting for the continuing resolution and preventing a government shutdown, but I for one was thankful he did it, not just for our own selfish reasons of our family trip, but also because I genuinely believe it was the right thing to do.  

Sometimes responsible government is doing the least harm, choosing the least bad option.  

If the Democrats had let the government be shut down, it would have been even more damaging to our economy and our government workers than the destruction and carnage Trump, Musk, and DOGE have wrought already.  

Since the shutdown was averted, there has been talk of Senator Schumer losing his leadership position, of AOC challenging him for his seat, of the Democrats choosing to fight tooth and nail the rest of the way until the next election, and maybe all of that is necessary, and I’m sure a lot of it will feel good for those who feel powerless right now to stop the decimation of our country from within, and I don’t blame them for feeling that way.  

Personally however, I agree with James Carville.  Now is the time to stand back and let Americans continue to “find out” what exactly their choices in November meant–whether they voted for this mess or didn’t vote at all.  

Yes, it royally sucks that the rest of us who didn’t vote for it, warned against it for years, or who live in other countries will have to feel the pain along with those who asked for it, but unfortunately that’s what it means when we say we are all in this together, through the good times and the bad.  

It reinforces why we have to continue to try and be there for each other, not why we should all be going our own separate ways.  

As Benjamin Franklin said, we must all hang together or we shall all hang separately.  

Oh and on my hat and my truck sticker….I’m kind of thinking of figuring out a way to post a link where folks can order one because I’ve had several people ask.  

The hat I got from Custom Lids and the vinyl window sticker from a vendor on Etsy.  Let me know if you think it’s something you’d like and if enough people are interested I’ll try and share their links or maybe order a bunch and figure out a way to sell them on my website.  

If I did the latter the proceeds would go 100% towards nonpartisan election reforms that get us all better candidates across the board in future elections and I would be transparent on my website about the accounting of it.