We all need a break from politics.
It’s everywhere. It’s on television. It’s on social media. It’s at work and at restaurants and it shows up at dinner with family when that one relative — we all have one — just won’t stop bringing it up no matter what.
Politics is reaching a saturation point where we need to be able to choose when we are going to open ourselves up to it and when we just need a moment to catch our collective breath.
And a homecoming parade might be the perfect time for that. It’s about a community coming together to support the kids. It’s about high school and teamwork and sportsmanship and good-natured competition.
It is not supposed to be about politics that goes beyond a vote for homecoming queen. But one Hempfield Township supervisor is interjecting politics where it shouldn’t go, and he’s doing it because he was told politics wouldn’t be allowed this year.
Doug Weimer is running for re-election. He became “upset” when he was informed candidates and political signs would not be allowed in this year’s parade Friday due to Hempfield Area School District policy.
A board member said Weimer made threats to pull permission to use Route 136 for the parade. Weimer told the Tribune-Review he “never directly” made that statement, but did say, “Maybe if the school district is scaling back their parade then perhaps they don’t need the township to close the road for them.”
That’s exactly the opposite of a community-oriented response.
We should celebrate the opportunity to have one event, one festivity, one single gathering that allows people to connect with each other as people without worrying about who is going to vote for whom.
With just over a month until the November election, and then the prospect of a 12-month march toward the 2020 presidential battle, it would be great if every community carved out one place where the emphasis was on the people and not the politics. That’s something worth coming home to celebrate.
