Here’s a Resolution – Be Nicer to Each Other this Election Year

I don’t know if you’ve noticed it but people are on edge these days. Immigration enforcement. Government gridlock. Foreign wars. Now riots and shootings and international arrests and potential invasions and ego and Presidents flipping the bird at factory workers.

That’s a lot of weighty stuff as we kick off an important election year, and it all matters. All of it is important. All of it deserves attention and a lot of people deserve a lot of redress.

But you know what’s not going to help this election year? Being a jerk to the people you know or – heaven really forbid – the people you love.

There’s a stupid old rule for interpersonal relationships; never talk about religion or politics. As a not-particularly-shy Christian and a man who does politics for a living, I always thought the axiom was ridiculous. Why wouldn’t we talk about the most important things in the world? Why wouldn’t we talk about the state of our souls and the lives of the people around us?

Well, because as it happens, most of us are incapable of doing it with any class. (Yeah, hi, that’s me raising my own hand, too.)

Civility has only gotten tougher in the age of Trump. The guy’s a lot of things, and one of them is a toxic and corrosive agent on the body politic. He’s made everything meaner and coarser and more impulsive and just plain more angry.

Don’t like Trump? You’re not welcome in the Republican Party anymore. Don’t dislike Trump enough? You’re not welcome at next week’s dinner party, either.

Add that badge on your profile picture or else.

Vote exactly like me or we can’t be friends anymore.

You didn’t do what I told you? Unfriend me.

I can’t worship with you anymore.

Silence is violence.

Cuck. RINO. 

Agree with me precisely or you’re burying your head. You’re living in a place of privilege. You’re not a good Christian. You’re heartless. Here’s a list of Bible verses you’re ignoring by not telling everyone how bothered you are in precisely the way I want you to express your opinion.

You’re failing to live your faith and I’m going to make sure your whole family knows it.

You probably already know this, but I’m just learning it for the first time – it tuns out sniping at people on social media really isn’t that effective a change agent. Neither are lectures or political sermons or self-righteousness.

So it’s a new year; a new election year at that. Passions are already high. Emotions are close to the surface.

I don’t want to wear the ribbon, so I won’t. But neither do I want to be a jerk about it.

This election year, can we all just try to be nice to each other? Let’s have our opinions. Let’s express them. Let’s vote and volunteer and make our campaign contributions. But let’s not insult the people we love. Let’s not belittle them. Let’s not “unfriend” people we disagree with.

Let’s talk politics. If the President won’t “lower the temperature,” can we?

Let’s talk religion. Instead of searching for scriptures to tell others how bad they are at being Christians, I’d like to apply the exhortations of James and be quicker to listen, slower to speak, and slower to become angry.

If we really want to get crazy, maybe we can find something that matters to do in the real world and do it alongside someone we disagree with politically. The country’s full of widows and orphans. Opportunities for “true religion” abound.

Maybe along the way we’ll figure out we’re really not that incompatible after all.