The Republican Party is the party of the past.

[Sophia4]

2. But I think that Americans can be awakened to the promise of the future.

I see my little grandson who already at four years old was able to construct LEGO planes and spaceships, etc. that I could not have constructed at 11 or 12.

I see my little granddaughter memorizing her books and already at 2 "reading" to her day-care classmates. We are a nation moving into a world quite unlike what we see today.

I am reminded of how quickly technologies replace each other, each building on the past one to create new possibilities for the future and the present.

I recall the day in the late 1940s when my parents bought our first record player. It played only 45s. I bet a lot of young people here have never seen a 45 or heard it played. (It's not a gun. It's a small disk with grooves and plays a small amount of music when a needle is pushed through its grooves.)

Photos had to be taken to the shop to be developed (except my father had a darkroom where he developed black and white pictures). The internet did not exist. Nor did personal computers. You had to go to a theater to watch a movie. Sometimes in small towns with only one theater and maybe two projection machines, the movie reel broke in the middle of the movie. You had to sit there and wait until some teenager in the projection room managed to get the movie started again.

In my grandmother's hometown, my great-aunt was "central." That means she managed the telephone communications in the town from a board around which she moved the telephone wires. She actually sat in front of the board which had maybe at most 30 holes representing telephones.

Soon television was invented, and we moved on from there. That is the technological world I have lived in. Technology moved our country quickly from horse and buggy to the reality of interstellar rockets. It's all beyond my comprehension. I sit here astounded by the vision of it as I write.

Republicans are not prepared to commit our nation to the combination of individual inspiration and grit plus joint, cooperative efforts that will be necessary if we are to continue this technological progress into the future.

We Democrats are. And that is what we need to tell voters. And that is what we need to sell to voters.

Rush Limbaugh and the aging monsters of the past that he represents are a dying breed as is their adoration of America's greatness in the past.

We are the Party of the future, of a great American future.

We are the Party of the technology we need to insure clean drinking water for the millions of Americans who will need it 50 years from now.

We are the Party that has the tact and intelligence and knowledge to work toward peace around the world and encourage international cooperation without destroying our domestic economy. We are the Party of creativity and answers.

Let's make Trump a figure of the past.

I am tired of being downcast and depressed about the 2016 election. We need to join with anyone who wants to meet the challenges of the future with compassion and energy. That's our key now in 2018 and in 2020 as well as in the years beyond.