Time to repair our divided states of America
“A house divided against itself cannot stand.” Abraham Lincoln famously said this as part of his 1858 speech at the Illinois Republican convention. Right now, about the only thing Americans can agree on is how severely divided we are as a nation.
At a time when our country was engaged in a brutal civil war and had an uncertain future, President Lincoln demonstrated great temperament and leadership that kept our government and our Union together. But, whereas Lincoln is known as the “Great Uniter”, our current president has become known as the “Great Divider.” Trump’s approach is the polar opposite, deliberately dividing the country for political gain, turning neighbor against neighbor and even turning citizens against their own government by inciting the January 6 Capitol attack. And now during his second term, he is weaponizing the Dept. of Justice and the military to go after anyone he doesn’t like.
President Trump is not going to change. And, America will not achieve greatness as long as we remain deeply divided. How, then, can we get beyond our current discord? The answer is both hard and simple: By building back our communities one human relationship at a time. This can only begin to happen when we recognize how much more alike we are than different. As Sting wrote in his song, ‘Russians’: “We share the same biology, regardless of ideology.”
I have some suggestions for what we can do that would go a long way toward reuniting our community and our nation. If you still have campaign signs and banners in your yard for the 2024 election, please take them down. Stop using “MAGA” and “woke” as 4-letter words. Don’t put your political party before your country. And, each week for the next month, do a random act of kindness for somebody else: double the tip you leave your server, donate blood, volunteer at the local food bank, help a stranger. “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”
Once we acknowledge and embrace our shared humanity, “us and them” can become “we the people.”