Even the Germans think we’ve gone too far.

Loyal Scaiaholics will recall my controversial position that we’re all Americans. Sorry to further instigate everyone, but this week, members of the House and Senate had to come together to say something that might cause us to recognize that.

I watched a bit of the Senate vote before bed Wednesday night. And then woke up for work at 3:30 to find out the House had just voted. Maybe we can agree all our lawmakers are a bit long winded. Do they even have blogs?!

Senator Ben Sasse said, “The center of America is the neighborhoods. We’re not supposed to be the most important people in America. We’re supposed to be servant leaders who try to maintain a framework for ordered liberty, for structure so they can get to the golden apple, which is the things they build together, the places where they coach little league, go to synagogue or church.”

He presented a strong point. Loyal Scaiaholics will recall rich discussions with the neighbors about Halloween and gardening (and looking back at it now, that lawn care blog was solid. I’m a problem-solver).

“Sometimes the big things we do together are governmental,” he continued. “Like kicking Hitler’s ass or like going to the moon.”

This blog has addressed kicking Hitler’s ass and going to the moon as well.

That’s when I realized: this is a blog that can bring us all together.

I discussed this issue (the riot, not how great my blog is) with both the Dallas County Republican Party and Dallas County Democratic Party.

The chairman of the Dallas County GOP, Rodney Anderson, said Republicans may be upset about the election, but you need to focus that anger in constructive ways.

He said we’re all talking about the riot, not the actual political issues Republicans want to address.

I brought this up with the Dallas County Democrats’ development director, Joanna Cattanach. She compared that to how George Floyd protesters were trying to make a point about institutional racism, but then a group broke off and damaged property. We were then talking about property damage instead of George Floyd.

She said she had gone to Washington to protest when Donald Trump was first elected, but she said the goal then was get people to stay involved in the political process so they might prompt a different outcome four years later.

The Dallas County Democrats and Republicans issued a joint statement on election day, gently encouraging everyone to, and I’m paraphrasing here, cool out.

They both have the same message again: No one stole any election, and even though people are upset on both sides, a third of you should not be hollering [it’s possible neither of them used the term, “hollering.”] because you didn’t bother to vote.

Both parties are now looking ahead to local elections in May, where, if history is a guide, a full 93% of you should not be hollering.

They’re also looking at what they’d like to see in the state legislative session that starts next week.

The message from both parties has been that we can holler all we want about politics, but we have more in common than differences. The key is to recognize those similarities.

A lot of the people in the riot seemed more focused on an Instagrammable picture than making a point.

We’re even similar there, too. On a visit to the Nixon Presidential Library a few years ago, I scurried onto the steps of his helicopter to recreate his departure from the White House after resigning in 1974.

Do you know what the Nixon Library did? They put up a barricade.

In my defense, if you don’t want people recreating pictures in hilarious, historically accurate [the only kind of hilarious] fashion, you probably shouldn’t leave steps to allow them to walk up to a helicopter door.

I can understand people’s concerns about the future of the country. It must be terrifying when I become the voice of reason.