Reconciling the 2024 election...a path forward?
I’ve been trying to think of a path forward after this last election, and find my pony... (you'll get the reference, if you read to the end).
It won’t be a riot on the Capital. It will require genuine effort to listen and "hear" how we got to this result. Did we not show up because she was a black woman for president? Did we not show up because we thought everybody else would? Where did those 14MM that showed up in 2020 go?
But an even bigger question is why 73 million came out and voted for him, again. No more or less than 2020, but still, they came out. Even with all the new information, all his personal meltdowns, his nasty rhetoric and disinformation and warnings from both the GOP, military, and heads of state...our fellow Americans deemed him the better choice.
We are not listening, or we are, but we're not "hearing" them. We are lacking the empathy that we continually ask of them. We don’t get why they think the way they do, it seems so foreign to us. But we claim to be the ones that listen to people who feel marginalized.
I believe that’s what we need to do for the next two and four years. Listen without judgment. Find common ground. Move the needle of understanding.
We don’t have to agree/accept their beliefs as "correct." We can have our beliefs and be faithful to them. But if we really believe that this is a country that allows for freedom of belief, then it has to be on both sides. We have to work hard to find that common ground so we can be the UNITED States of America.
I don’t mean we give into the white supremacist, Christian nationalists or the hate groups that have found a voice again. I’m talking about people that are hurting, that are confused, that are scared by these giant leaps in philosophy, technology, and thought. (btw, read Karen Armstrong's Battle for God to understand this concept) They're the ones that you share a smile with at the grocery store. You have no idea what their political leanings are and you have a little chitchat over Heinz ketchup. There are people who just want to feel they’ve been heard, just like people on our side.
It may feel like we’re the ones who are constantly compromising, but are we? Or are we just expecting them to come meet us where we are? Somebody has to make the first step towards understanding. Not blind acceptance, but understanding. We are never gonna all agree on everything. But if we’re not at least listening and talking, this fracture, this divide, this growth of hate, is only gonna get worse.
Before we really do become a Christo-fascist nation, we have to listen, we have to have dialogue, we have to move the needle, a hair towards the middle.
These sides are getting more and more of a chasm between them. In part to social media, and unfettered access to content that bolsters disinformation and plays into those feelings of marginalization. Those feelings of "you’re trying to take mine" or "you're telling me to feel ashamed because I don't believe like you."
I’m not suggesting we should go backwards and take away rights from individuals that they deserve. I want to start the conversation that might lead to an understanding if where ever there's any wiggle room or place where those of us center left and center right start to find common ground or acceptance and move the needle back and make the chasm smaller.
But then again, I’m the person who’s always looking for the pony in the box of manure (told you we'd get there). But I don’t think that’ll ever change.