Your View: November election about larger issues than personal needs

All politics is local.

I heard that years ago, and it explains why the undecided voter I spoke to recently told me she was impressed with a local Republican politician. His office helped a friend with a personal matter. So I shared my experience, how helpful Democrat Susan Wild was when I needed her assistance. I could have added that on another occasion, years ago, Republican Charlie Dent was personally helpful to a family member.

Constituent services are the backbone of any politician's office. During more than 25 years of ministry in downtown Allentown I met and got to know staff from both Republican and Democrat offices. In my experience, those staff members are dedicated, hard-working local people whose job is to help constituents. From what I saw, they do their jobs well, helping everyone as best as they can without asking whether they are Republican, Democrat or none of the above.

So I gently suggested this woman's friend would have been helped equally well by staff from a Democrat's office. Then I went on to explain why I think this year's election is not just about voting for the person who helps you with a personal issue. As necessary as it sometimes is to get help navigating government services and red tape, this year's election shouldn't be about which politician is most helpful to me personally. This election is about larger issues than my personal needs.

Continuing the conversation, she explained she was a nurse and she certainly was aware of the larger issues at stake in health care. I reminded her that Susan Wild (and the Democrats) are the ones championing health care that benefits everyone. This nurse's professional experience confirmed how necessary the Affordable Care Act is, and what problems the reversal of Roe v. Wade caused. After we talked, she reflected, "this will make for interesting conversation at the dinner table tonight."

That's the kind of conversation we need to be having with one another, about the larger issues.

Also, even though religion didn't come up in our conversation explicitly, I think that she was Roman Catholic, yet as a nurse she understood that not everyone shares the Roman Catholic Church's theologically conservative beliefs and assumptions about fertility issues.

As a pastor, I've talked with women as well as couples who had to make difficult personal decisions concerning fertility issues and pregnancy. I can't imagine how agonizing it now is for those living in states where women's reproductive care has been compromised and complicated by state legislatures, whose laws contradict physicians' best practices and counsel.

On the national ticket, Donald Trump has gone back-and-forth about reproductive care issues. For nine years he's been saying he had a better health care plan than the Affordable Care Act. Yet in his most recent public comments, he admitted that all he has, after all this time, are "concepts of a plan." I wonder how many of those "concepts" come from Project 2025. That plan, which calls itself "the Presidential Transition Project," advances the authoritarian direction of all too many in the Republican Party under Donald Trump.

Authoritarianism is one of the larger issues at stake in this year's election. Even if you think this won't impact you personally, living in a commonwealth reminds us we should be voting for the common good. That's why I was having a conversation with an undecided voter, urging her to vote for Susan Wild. This November I'd urge you to vote Democrat right on up the ballot, including Bob Casey and Kamala Harris.

Precisely because this election is about larger issues, many prominent Republicans, including more than 200 staffers of four previous Republican presidential candidates, went on record saying they are voting for Kamala Harris. These conservative Republicans describe Donald Trump with words such as chaotic, untenable and a threat to American values and institutions. They warn us that Trump's fondness for dictators such as Vladimir Putin and Viktor Orban is dangerous.

Who would have thought it? Republican leaders publicly urging everyone to vote for a Democrat. I think it's happening because lots of conversations are turning people to the common good.

The Rev. Bob Stevens is retired former senior pastor of Zion's "Liberty Bell" United Church of Christ, Allentown.