Are We All Still Under That Big Tent?

Guest Opinion by Lisa Ward

It’s a big tent.  Room for all.  But are we all still under it?

For most of my life I believed in the idea of the big tent in the Democratic Party (United States).

I loved that image. 

A tent is supposed to be a place where people come in from different directions and find shelter together.

It doesn’t require everyone inside to look the same, think the same, or believe the same. The only thing it asks is that we respect that we are sharing the same space.

But over time I started asking myself a hard question.

Do we really live that value, or do we just say we do?

We talk a lot about diversity, equality, and inclusion.

Those words have become part of our language. But somewhere along the way they became easier to say than to practice.

Diversity is not just race or gender.

Diversity is life experience.

It is faith and moral compass.

It is how someone was raised, what they believe about family, work, responsibility, and community.

It is the quiet differences in how people see the world.

Equality means those differences don’t make one person’s voice more valuable than another.

Inclusion means something deeper than both. Inclusion means accepting the whole person, not just the parts of them that line up neatly with our own beliefs.

And that’s where I think we sometimes struggle.

We say the tent is open to everyone, but the truth is we often make room only for the people who think like we do.

Labels aren’t defining us, they’re segregating us. 

The moment someone stands a little to far to the left or more to the center, or even carries more traditional beliefs leaning other than we expect, they can suddenly feel like they’re standing outside the tent looking in.

But real inclusion means allowing people to stand beside us even when they see the world differently.

People fight for their convictions in different ways. 

Some are passionate progressives pushing the boundaries of change.

Others are more cautious, more centrist, trying to balance change with stability.

And then there are others clinging to the past afraid to let go.

Some people carry faith deeply into their politics. Others approach everything through policy and practicality.

None of those paths are identical, but they all belong in a party that claims to welcome diversity.

The truth is, I am by nature a fairly traditional person.

I was raised with conservative instincts about family, responsibility, and respect.

My personal beliefs don’t always fit neatly into the box people imagine when they hear the word progressive.

But when I think about progress, I don’t think about ideology.

I think about movement. Progress simply means moving forward.

It means opening doors that were once closed.

It means creating opportunity for people who didn’t have it before.

It means learning to live beside one another even when we don’t agree on everything.

Life is rarely a one-size-fits-all experience. Politics isn’t either.

There have been moments when I’ve listened to someone in the Republican Party (United States) and found myself agreeing with a point they made about responsibility, accountability, or government overreach.

Then those same people will double back and I’ll disagree about the hypocrisy I just agreed with.

That doesn’t make me less of who I am. It simply means I’m listening and thinking. 

But there are also lines I will not cross because of my values.

The rise of the movement surrounding Make America Great Again and the continued support for Donald Trump is one of those lines for me.

Supporting that movement tells me something deeper about a person’s priorities and their view of leadership.

When someone chooses that path, it creates a pause in me. It makes me reflect more carefully on what they believe and why.

Not because we disagree on policy, but because character, truth, and respect for democratic principles matter to me.

And somewhere along this journey I began to notice something else.

Many of us who have been part of this party for a long time are quietly asking ourselves questions we never expected to ask.

We look around and sometimes we don’t quite recognize the party the way we once did. 

We wonder whether we have lost our way, or whether the truth is simply that times have changed.

Maybe the next generation is leading differently because the world they grew up in is different from the one we knew.

Maybe the way we raised our children, teaching them to question, to challenge, to push forward, is exactly what we are seeing play out now in leadership and in the direction of the party.

In that sense, the party may not be abandoning its principles. It may simply be evolving.

And that leaves some of us in a reflective place.

We have to ask ourselves whether we are still a fit, whether we need to adapt to those changes, or whether our own values have taken us somewhere slightly different than where the party is heading.

Those are not easy questions, but they are honest ones.

Because being a Democrat was never supposed to be about fitting into a single mold.

It was supposed to be about values. Respect for people who are different. Respect for the idea that someone can stand beside you under the same tent even if their path to those values looks different than yours.

But somewhere along the way we began mistaking progress for uniformity. We began expecting people to fight the same battles in the same way in order to belong.

That expectation quietly shrinks the tent.

The real strength of the Democratic Party was always supposed to be its willingness to hold many perspectives at once.

Progressives, moderates, traditional thinkers, reformers, people of faith, people without it, all standing in the same space because they believed in moving society forward together.

The moment we forget how to respect those differences is the moment the tent stops being big.

And maybe the real lesson in all of this is simple.

Progress is not about everyone becoming the same.

Progress is learning how to move forward together even when we are not.

Hence, my struggles with where we aren’t today and why I don’t find a space for me under the tent of late.

Lisa Ward is a former Democratic nominee for the Alabama State Senate, a political leader and advocate with more than three decades of experience advancing justice, equity, and community empowerment. She is known for grassroots organizing and coalition-building across the State, and is committed to policy solutions that uplift marginalized communities and strengthen democracy. She currently serves as a senior advisor to the Will Boyd for Alabama campaign.

This opinion piece originally appeared on Facebook. It is reprinted here with the permission of the author.

Opinions do not reflect the views and opinions of ALPolitics.com. ALPolitics.com makes no claims nor assumes any responsibility for the information and opinions expressed above.