Hey guys, I’m not a political blog, and I’m not here to jump on the “you’re not welcome here if you voted for X” bandwagon. I want this space to be one that everyone can share in, and I don’t say that from a place of political neutrality (I have strong partisan feelings), or from a place of “Let’s all just sing Kumbaya” denial about the strong divisions between us.
I say it because the places where Hillary-Americans and Trump-Americans share space are already so few. Both sides have cloistered themselves in their echo chambers and spun up their narratives that not only are their opponents wrong, but dangerous. Traitorous. Evil.
I feel like what we need in order to move forward as a country is to be able to lay down our fears and our anger for just a minute and engage people on the other side of the ideological divide as human beings with fears and anger of their own. To talk to “them” the same way we talk to “us.” To our friends. I’m not saying we should all agree; we won’t. I’m just saying that if we listen to each other--speak our minds to each other not in the form of insults or even persuasion, but just calmly, candidly communicating our hopes and fears and frustrations while listening to theirs in kind, we can begin to replace those default assumptions that what animates the Other Side is evil.
Instead of arguing, share your personal story. Instead of dismissing them as ignorant (or worse, malicious), actually ask what motivates them, and let them tell you. Really listen to their answers, not to gather data for your rebuttal, but to learn who they are, what the world looks like through their eyes. Show them the basic respect one human owes another, and ask them to do the same. Because the alternative to that is to forever deal with straw men.
Building straw men will win you some elections, yes. But the day after every election, win or lose, we go back to being one country whose citizens all have to share space with one another. Indulging in straw man thinking means that you will never know what common ground you share. What positive progress can be made for the nation as a whole because it addresses the concerns of both sides. It seems like we have nothing in common, but we do--if we can bring ourselves to have those conversations.
It’s comfortable to surround yourself with like-minded people. To stick to Our websites and Our news channels and Our hashtags. But ask yourself if the comfort of keeping to your safe spaces where you never need to interact with people who think differently is worth the price of this division. Worth the inability to interact constructively with half the country, which is then directly reflected in our government’s ability to function to all our benefit as well.
Being gay has taught me all this. I know what it’s like to want to spend time with like-minded people, because it’s easy and comfortable and safe. I know what it’s like to be afraid of the Other Side, and with good cause. But I also know that there are people alive now who think differently (and vote differently) about gay people because I had a conversation with them. Not a shouting match, but a real conversation where they told me their worries about the changing cultural landscape or their faith-based reservations or their squicky feelings about sex. I told them what sex and love mean to me, and they saw that there was more in common between us than they thought. And so did I -- and that’s important! I learned that some of the people voting against marriage equality weren’t the faceless pitchfork-and-torch bearers I feared. They were people acting out of concern and what they felt was right, even if I vehemently disagreed with that view. The point is, we both saw a human, where before we saw straw men. And now those people and I vote the same way on that issue!
That’s how progress is made. That’s how hearts are won -- by giving up the preconception that your position is absolutely correct and theirs is absolutely wrong and accepting that though we have different experiences and values and goals, the vast majority of us are decent people who are trying to do what’s best for ourselves, our families, our country. The more we can see the real causes of fear and anger and resentment in this country, the more we can do to address it at the source, rather than raging against its symptoms.
tl;dr: As divided as we are, we succeed or fail as a nation. Please be decent to one another, and for every hour you spend shouting, try to spend a few minutes listening with an open heart. Thank you for reading.
titsay
kaledo-art
tangentwithtanner
pixelskylines
yousharknotpass
turnnoffyourmind
