No, liberals don’t want to take your freedom and conservatives don’t hate poor people*
By: Ben Edwards
Tags: Politics, Society, Sociology, Trump, Election 2020

I want to capture how I feel at this time in history. “This time in history” is a funny phrase. Every time is a time in history. Every thing is either experience or memory.

But I needed to get this out prior to next Tuesday’s election — the most important one in my lifetime. I think I’ve said that before. This time is truer than ever. We need to vote. And we need to vote for Joe Biden. This isn’t because he is amazing or anything. We all know he ain’t. Put simply, America may not be able to handle another four years like the ones we’ve just had.

This isn’t going to be a post about all the things wrong with Trump and the tone he has set for the country. That would take too long and others have done it better. Plus he shouldn’t get all the “credit”. He simply tapped into something that was already there.

No, I’d like to take this post down a more personal path — in an old school weblog sort of way. I’d like to tell you about what has made me very sad and very angry in 2020.

I’ve always thought Americans — when it really came down to it — would stand together — would rise up as one. (Some) Wars have done it. I figured huge events like an alien invasion or global pandemic would have the same sort of effect. Unfortunately, the Covid-19 pandemic has not brought Americans together, except for maybe in hospital beds near each other. We’ve had riots where some are angry and sad and some are out to sow chaos for their own gain. There are people proudly not wearing masks — disregarding the other people in our society for — you know — their freedom. And you have people getting together in large numbers, going to restaurants for — you know — boredom.

I really don’t like how my fellow Americans are behaving.

More than anything, I dislike how I feel during these times. What I am feeling borders on hate for those who would — in my opinion — put their party and “winning” over the good of the country, and even their neighbors.

I don’t like hating.

I want to try to understand people. I am not interested in how they may see things but how it is that they came to see things the way they do.

I would like to tear down the idea that we are our beliefs versus just believing what we believe. We should believe what we believe but be who we are. We should hold our beliefs as less sacred — be willing to change them when new information is presented. But today, we vote based on how we identify and which candidates best reflect that identity back at us.

This is why to say someone is voting against their best interests is simply not understanding how that person sees the world and their place within it. I won’t ask someone why they are seemingly voting against their interests ever again. Instead I’ll be curious about the person. I’ll want to know what motivates them? What is important to them? How do they see themselves, their community, their country.

We need to understand each other and for that we need to talk to each other. And here we get to the thing that has really got me down — especially in this time where we are (or should be) spending time more or less isolated with our families and small circles of friends. It is harder than ever to talk to those “on the other side”.

We need to move away from politics as team sports where one side “wins”, one side loses, and the sum is zero. It isn’t winning to simply make the other side angry, or sad. We should be looking for ways to have the highest number of Americans improve their lives.