Like many Americans, and indeed people around the world, we are watching a presidential campaign the likes of which hopefully only come around once every 100 years. It has been hard not to have an opinion on the race, particularly the tabloid-style fulminations of the Republican candidates.

On an almost daily basis there is something that one or more of these candidates says that forces us in the community that embrace diversity, to stop and realize that progress is not necessarily linear, and that the things we are working to make better are threatened by the politics of fear, exclusion and hate.

Unfortunately, this nation has a history of blaming the outsider, the o....