Veterans saved democracy. Can politicians keep it?

Our long national nightmare is over. The elections are finished and now we’ll find out if all those nasty ads made a difference. All politicians claimed they were bipartisan. We’ll see if they were just kidding or they really meant it.

Whatever the results, our newly elected representatives need to stop fighting and get to work making life better for all of their constituents, instead of mouthing ludicrous lies designed to divide us — for example, claiming schools are surgically changing your child’s gender. Or telling us what books we are allowed to read — as determined by people who sound like they have never read a book.

The United States has weathered many political storms over our 250 years as a nation, but these times are as serious as any. We have a president who wallows in corruption and cruelty, and a compliant Congress that has failed to bring him to heel, despite its constitutional mandate to keep him in check.

Unrest in America is festering because of this. We spend hundreds of millions of dollars — even billions — to dress up the White House and erect gaudy monuments to salve a President’s ego, but we can’t come up with a few bucks to provide food, shelter and basic human decency for our nation’s poorest.

These conditions have fomented unrest in other nations, most recently in France and Italy, where failure to keep schools in decent repair provoked outrage among the people. We look with an air of superiority on these European nations, but we are headed for similar problems if we continue to generate class warfare.

Our parents were members of the Greatest Generation, FDR New Dealers who survived the Great Depression, defeated fascism in World War II, and created the strongest economy in the world built on the foundation of a thriving middle class.

Republicans and Democrats alike have ignored basic human needs. Partisan politicians warned that electing a socialist mayor of New York, Zohran Mamdani, would wreak havoc on the city. Instead, he enjoys wide popularity because he’s made good on his common sense campaign pledges, like filling thousands of potholes that previous mayors ignored, and making the buses run faster. Simple acts make the lives of all New Yorkers better.

For three decades in the mid-1900s, Milwaukee elected three socialist mayors in succession because they got things done for people, like building a sewer system that helped all residents, not just the rich.

Many mayors, governors and presidents since FDR have lost sight of that simple goal: do the basic things that help everyone.

Next Wednesday we observe Veterans Day to honor the men and women who have defended American democracy and the principle that all people are created equal.

Our father, Pat Cullen, was one of those defenders of democracy who served for over three years, in the prime of his life, with the Army Air Corps in Europe during World War II.

So was Mom’s brother, Tom Murray, the pride of Bancroft, an infantryman who gave the ultimate sacrifice on a bloody battlefield in the Philippines.

They joined millions of other brave Americans in the fight against tyrants for freedom. When GIs in the Battle of the Bulge huddled in foxholes being shelled, no one cared if the soldier next to them was rich or poor; gay or straight; immigrant or native-born; Christian, Jew or Muslim. They were all in it together.

Today we need a President and Congress, governors and legislators, mayors and city councils who remember the founding principles of our nation, who appreciate what our veterans fought for — democracy and equality. It’s as simple as giving the people in the less affluent parts of town the same services as the rich.

May God bless all Americans. We need it right now.