There is no question that the election season 2020 is divisive; brother against sister, husband against wife, neighbor against neighbor, friend against friend. We find that someone is voting for ‘the other guy’ and we write them off as ‘insane’, ‘idiots’, ‘lost their minds’, and many terms that cannot be written in a family publication.
I think a lot of this is based on the fact the most people don’t support their candidate, they tear down yours. Trump is a donkey’s butt, Biden is a senile liar, and we are off to the races. I will increase my vindictive against your guy, you will try to top me about mine. Before long its close to fisticuffs, and we say things that do permanent damage to a relationship.
I have a solution to all this. What if we didn’t tear down our competition, but spend the conversation building up our guy. Tell me the reasons why you think your guy is best for the job, and you cannot mention my guy in the conversation.
If we are selecting the leader of our country, we should know just what good he is going to do. We should be able to list the things that he or she brings to the office. We should be able to show what actions he has taken in the past that will back up our claims that he is ‘the guy.’ From my point of view, simply tearing down my candidate doesn’t cut it, and it causes irreparable damage to the national fabric.
With the possible exception of obscure political junkies writing in blogs no one reads, I cannot think of a person that has, in the media, or anywhere else for that matter, said a word about the positive side of their candidate. Oh they can go for hours on why mine is a donkey’s butt, but never a positive word about theirs. To me this is sad.
And it is painful to the point of destroying relationships at every level. Congress no longer can debate a particular bill and then go have a drink with the competition, talking heads castigate entire sections of the populace and never once mention why I should vote for their guy. Ah for the days when Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Antonin Scalia could argue daily about points of law, then spend an evening as close friends discussing opera or when Tip O’Neill and Ronald Reagan could go head to head on domestic and defense policy, but find agreement on foreign affairs.
Try to have a conversation where you only discuss the benefits of your candidate. If you can’t, shame on you.
JVH
