Oct. 6, 2025 Editor, The News-Gazette: Before you check out there comes a time when you need to be honest with both yourself and your God. That’s not easy. You may have discovered that being honest requires change, the only constant in life.
Change is also at the heart of politics. Today’s conventional wisdom says our politics are a mess, that we live in divisive times and can’t seem to agree on anything. Political parties are thought to be so bad that we don’t even allow local candidates to display an “R” or a “D” after their names on a ballot.
How foolish! Voting by party is how we settle our differences. Yet political parties are not mentioned in our Constitution. All they have done is build a couple of large tents filled with millions of voters with shared views facilitating compromise. That’s all.
So how can we build stronger tents, better political parties? Simply by taking a page from our history book, one with music on it. In 1929, as the stock market crashed, a little known lyricist, Jack Yellen, wrote a song that in 1932 became a hit. The Democrats rode it to a smashing victory. Forget that we were in the middle of a great depression followed by a world war. Words can do wonders.
And what were those words? It’s in the song’s title: “Happy Days Are Here Again.” As with political parties, happiness is not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution. Nonetheless, both are necessary if we are to keep going for another 250 years. Don’t check out now. Stay happy. Keep enjoying America. DAVID REYNOLDS Rockbridge County
