Maybe we should call it Interdependence Day

Saturday was my youngest granddaughter’s 14th birthday. When I asked her mom what Josey wanted, her mom was a bit taken aback.

Josey’s still interested in STEM things — educational toys, games, and projects — but she’s also fascinated with makeup and clothes, her seemingly regretful mom reported.

Why not? She’s 14. She can be both a would-be scientist and a blossoming young woman at the same time.

Too often these days, we seem to see the world in black and white — Democrat vs. Republican, liberal vs. conservative, big city vs. small town, minority vs. majority, immigrant vs. native-born.

Truth is, all of us have a little bit of each of those things in our character, and digging deep to recognize it might be the best birthday present we could buy — not only for a teenage granddaughter but also a 2½ century old democracy.

Other than my son and his family, I have a very small group of close relatives. An only child, I have only two first cousins from my near-peer group growing up.

I was chatting with one this weekend and the other a few weekends before. Conversation both times focused on the same somewhat controversial topic, and my cousins seemed to share almost exactly the same opinions on it.

When I mentioned that to each of them, I was taken aback by what I heard. The two don’t talk politics, as they put it, because one is a very liberal, urban Democrat and the other is an equally conservative, rural Republican. To them, “Donald” followed by “Trump” are fighting words.

But why? Neither of them has any real idea what the president thinks about the issue involved. They agree almost totally on it. Yet they’re afraid even to discuss it with each other for fear they’ll end up in disagreement.

There are many things a whole lot worse than disagreement, if it is conducted civilly. The worst is not even talking about things for fear there might be a disagreement.

The best gift we can get America for its 250th birthday is like the makeup collection that I, her retired college professor grandfather, bought for my granddaughter — something that acknowledges the seemingly conflicting thoughts we might have in society and attempts to structure a world that grows stronger because we celebrate and respect rather than condemn differences.

This isn’t about being “woke,” behaving like Mister Rogers or Barney the Dinosaur or even following Christianity’s the Golden Rule.

It’s about living in a democracy and wanting it to flourish rather than decay into autocracy or violence or effete impotence.

John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were bitter rivals — as different as night and day. But they came together 250 years ago to help create this republic.

We need to do the same now, 250 years later, to keep it running.

— ERIC MEYER