“Before the terrifying prospects now available to humanity, we see even more clearly that peace is the only goal worth struggling for. This is no longer a prayer but a demand to be made by all peoples to their governments — a demand to choose definitively between hell and reason.” - Albert Camus
I can remember when it was common to know someone for years without knowing what their politics were. It just never came up or if it did it wasn't a deal breaker in a relationship. There is nothing that requires everyone you know to agree with you on everything or do things the way you want them done. We as a nation have lost sight of this.
While in the service I met many white southerners and rural denizens. Most believed the wrong side won the civil war. Know your history. After the battles won, Lincoln shot and Andrew Johnson, a southerner, undid all the gains from the battles. Beginning with FDR, With the insight of Elinor, some battles were won. However this country has always been a series of battles and never a United States except when forced together to fight a common enemy. As Shakespeare said “adversity acquaints one with strange bedfellows.”
This is accurate and you are right. It’s amazing though when we find out that somebody we thought we liked actually supports people we think are total freaking evil idiots. The discovery has ruined many relationships.
I like pickup trucks. Other people like motorcycles. I don't like motorcycles. I don't think that people who like motorcycles are evil or stupid. I have friends who like motorcycles. I will never get them to not like motorcycles. I will not stop liking pickup trucks.
Yes, but there are no stakes involved in disagreeing about motorcycles. 🏍️
In politics, the stakes are high because people have different ideas about the underpinnings of America and what people think and how they vote matter.
So some relationships are important enough to stay off the subject and other relationships we may just decide to let go because we think the person’s values are warped. I have both such groups of people - survivors of the discord and casualties of the discord.
What’s sad about it is that if anybody really takes the time to understand opposing points of view, they can learn that people can draw very different conclusions and still be within the realm of good faith. Gaining such understanding better protect the quality of the relationship than just silently demonizing the other person‘s thinking and pretending to ignore it and focusing on the fact that you both like apple pie
It seems that much of society today involves one group demanding that another group do and believe what they want them to. It won't work. The result is that all sides retreat into the bunker of their beliefs. Facts and logic will never overcome hardened beliefs especially when on social media or the internet you can find support for virtually any position on any topic. There is always a way to find someone who will tell you how smart and right you are on any issue. I believe that there is a growing fatigue that is resulting in the best people on all sides sitting it out leaving only the most extreme people participating. Not good. I do not have a solution.
I’m pretty sure I agree mostly with what you just said, except that I think there are good people participating. Look forward to reading your solution.
One of the most truly patriotic Americans I know is a Latino native Texan. A brother in arms, he was a Screaming Eagle 82nd Airborne Ranger. He lives now with his Canadian wife in Toronto but visits his rental properties, family, and friends in Texas often. He truly cares about this country and speaks out eloquently against the white nationalist authoritarians who would destroy our democracy. Starting to age, he continually works out so as to be ready to physically fight should that become necessary. At 86, I can’t match that but I can and do speak out in multiple fora including in my own newsletter on Substack and on Facebook
I have another friendly acquaintance in the process of becoming a friend who spent 22 years in the U.S. Army as an enlisted soldier. He and I rarely agree politically but we respect each other’s service, and share a deep commitment to this country and its Constitution. I will never convince him not to love Donald Trump but I can get him to see individual issues differently and he occasionally opens my eyes to something I’ve overlooked.
What can people do about Trump's prisons? Even if millions stood against them, nothing would change, and, unfortunately, millions stand with them. I think that the US will have to play out whatever role it's chosen for itself. Every nation, every civilization runs it's course until it bottoms out, then begins to rebuild. 1933 happens over and over again. For over 8 decades I have watched the decline of the US. It's hard to stop a boulder rolling downhill. If people keep re-electing the same politicians, from both parities, nothing will change for the better. Look at RFK jr.; millions of people wanted him to become President. Can you imagine what policies he would have enacted? We have gone from the age of enlightenment to the age of insanity. A marriage is between 2 people, a nation is between millions of political entities, each vying for him/herself. Americans have been taught to fear any system that isn't called Democracy, yet the 3 least corrupt countries, according to the World Corruption List, are all Socialist.
No, not the famous David Angel. More the infamous rabble rouser Angel!
The reason millions of people don’t object to detention facilities for illegal aliens on their way to deportation is because we voted against the invasion of 13+ million illegals condoned by whoever ran the Biden administration over the last four years.
They were asked to self deport and incentivized to do so with free plane fare home and $1000. If they want to take their chances, that’s their business. Pretending it’s a concentration camp doesn’t make it one just as pretending that socialist nations are not an abomination doesn’t alter the reality that the economic system called socialism has never worked on a large scale, and never will because it is contrary to human nature and an anathema to all freedom, loving people everywhere. It’s just a pitstop on the road to Stalinism.
It takes a certain mindset to set illegal aliens up at fancy hotels, and not all of us think that’s a great plan because we understand that a country needs borders to be a country
I agree that illegal aliens should be sent back to their home countries. I don't think that they should be sent to foreign prisons whom we pay to house them. I also don't like people mistakenly snatched off the street and taken to places where no one can find them. Do you really think that Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, and New Zealand are abominations? Democratic Socialism in not pre-Communist Socialism. I do think that it works better in small, homogenous populations. The US is too diverse for it to be successful here. The countries that I referenced are not pure Socialism, the government doesn't control the means of production and distribution. Do you think that "Alligator Alcatraz" isn't a concentration camp? It's not a normal prison. Look at the photos of it and compare them with photos of Nazi camps. Mississippi is a cesspool of these types of prisons. Read what the people who are promoting these prisons are saying. These people are evil minded. No human deserves to be treated like garbage. Imprison lawbreakers, don't dehumanize them. In the meantime, the worst of these criminals are still committing crimes in Colo., but it's easier to snatch people off the streets in L.A. than to look for them in Colo.
Good article. Forgiving a cheating partner is tough business. Every time. Serial abuse of vows. In fact and/or practice, requires facing hard facts about the validity of the union.
Half my family is MAGA. But they're good folks. They just don't know. The people have been betrayed by their leaders. But the people will wake up someday and get to work repairing the damage. The Red White and Blue will wave on. Happy 4th!
What you're suggesting is a start people can make. And I think we already see a bit of that on Substack when someone says something that really bothers you but you stay in the conversation and pick out a plus point you can both agree on. Then if you are both invested enough in it, the conversation continues even if there is only a tiny bit of healing. Still worth going after. The far too late point is totally valid. But the it's never too late work on cleaning up the mess point is just as valid.
In 1855 Lincoln wrote this in a letter to Joshua Speed: "As a nation, we began by declaring "all men are created equal." We now practically read it "all men are created equal, except negroes." When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read "all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics." When it comes to this, I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty-to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy."
Lincoln was expressing frustration with the anti-immigrant sentiments of the nativist "Know-Nothing Party".
What you wrote is lovely and certainly is desirable over the alternative. The only problem is, from my experience in trying what you proposed, is that MAGA folks aren't even on board for trying to find common ground.
“The only problem is, from my experience in trying what you proposed, is that MAGA folks aren't even on board for trying to find common ground.”
You are not looking to have common ground with ideas you disagree with. Neither am I.
I think you miss the issue and the solution.
It’s not about finding common ground with people or ideas we disagree with.
It is about the intellectual rigor and honesty of seeing through the lying and partisan media and reading enough about opposing points of view to not demonize them and understand that people come to them in good faith just like you come to your ideas in good faith. When that happens, two people of different views can respect each other and be friends the way Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg did. It’s a higher level of understanding than just secretly thinking poor you, you’re just deluded. I am pro-Trump and I don’t have a single idea that I can’t justify in good faith. Of course he’s not perfect, are you?
Thomas Wolfe famously wrote, "But we are the sum of all the moments of our lives—all that is ours is in them: we cannot escape or conceal it."
I am not RBG and MAGA supporters are not Scalia.
I live in rural central Pennsylvania, often referred to as Pennsyltucky--the geographic and political space between Pittsburgh in the west and Philadelphia in the southeast part of the state.
You characterized a higher level of understanding as more than "just secretly thinking poor you, you're just deluded."--which has never been part of my thinking about anyone. Also, you never asked me, only assumed, what I see as common ground and what my moments are. Therein lies the problem.
For me, it's not about "the intellectual rigor and honesty or seeing through the lying and partisan media and reading opposing points of view." I question my own points of view, and I am a voracious reader. I am also an avid listener. I couldn't have confidence in the core of who I am without doing those things.
I specifically mentioned in my comment that it was MY experience with MAGA supporters when I wrote about MAGA not even being onboard for trying to find common ground--which is really an understatement on my part.
It really and truly is in the sum of my moments that MAGA now, and far right political supporters of all stripes prior to MAGA, that causes them to want nothing to do with me on any level. I've had conversations that started out with talking about, for instance, music, only to devolve into partisan politics if I mentioned I like the music (with no mention of political views) of a certain musician who they considered a patently radical leftist. Then comes the attack claiming I have "TDS" because that musician has "TDS" before walking away from me.
I once worked for a Family Planning and WIC agency. The simple question to me about where I worked at a social gathering by a college professor turned into a loud attack when I answered him. I said nothing in reply and left in tears. That was years before MAGA and those folks from back then are still here. In other words, even if I mentioned where I was employed, I was demonized.
I could tell you more of my moments and I will if you ask that of me.
I don't know your moments and won't assume them as you have done with me.
There are also those who think that it’s in their best interest to make sure we stay divided. Most Americans (arguably most people everywhere) would agree with your statement – “I never ask you to do something I am unwilling to do.” I’d add that I’ll never attempt to coerce you into doing something you don’t want to do, and I suspect that most people would agree with that as well. Anyone who doesn’t, despite what they might say, is more interested in power than anything else and cannot be trusted in anything. Far more of us see the danger and will do whatever we can to find that common ground we can all stand on and solutions to the real problems we face as people and as a country. Lia Thomas, Hispanic farm workers, and books about two male penguins raising a chick aren’t real problems and anyone concerned can solve their personal problem simply by ignoring it. The dividers want us to ignore our common humanity and focus on the minor differences that don’t really impact on much of anything.
The essential basis for reunion is for each of us to mind our own business and, when we have business together, to mind it by conversation and agreement. Saying the Pledge together is basically repeating our vows of union as Americans and renewing our support for the Declaration of Independence as updated by Andy Borowitz in an outstanding piece celebrating the 4th. https://open.substack.com/pub/borowitzreport/p/a-new-declaration-of-independence?r=2jsw1&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
The solution to the dividers among us, since shutting up is exactly counter to their strategy for keeping us at loggerheads is to set them aside when we’re working with each other. We can be there for each other without any reference to anyone’s politics and we must have enough self-respect and confidence to recognize that not everything we favor is consistent with the need to work together and respect each other. Being willing to suppress our own egos and get past our fear of being wrong about something is the first and most important step in saving the civil union that this country is based on. Insisting that anyone we support for public office do the same is an almost equally important second step. Celebrate the 4th in memory of those who pledged their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor to the ideals of the original Declaration of Independence and we can pledge our own to its renewal with “malice toward none, and charity for all.” Welcome home.
I love the spirit and idealism in this letter. My heart agrees. But my head is witnessing something evil. Millions of Americans are treating "others" as subhuman. Read about Garcia's experience in El Salvador. Look at the concentration camps being built. This is not a marriage. This is becoming a war.
I'll talk to anyone who says they are a Republican. But if they applaud the bill $Trump will sign today, they are cruel. They are loving murder.
This is not a marriage anymore. It's a war we have win.
MAGA must be vanquished. When Republicans decide to be fiscally and compassionately conservative, we can shake hands and work together on solutions. Until then, man the battle stations.
There was a time...my folks were Eisenhower Republicans. Their best friends were Democrats. That was before the Republican Party decided to embrace authoritarianism and brutality. If they were alive today, they would not recognize their party. They would be horrified that they fought fascism, won and now it is embedded in their own party.
MAGA is not an opposing view. A discussion between fiscal conservatives and advocates of social safety nets...that can be a healthy process of opposing views.
A discussion about the best way to maintain infrastructure and provide safe drinking water, feeding the poor, housing homeless Veterans and so many important topics can involve opposing views.
But when it comes to honoring the Constitution, the rule of law, the role of Congress in terms of funding and who should authorize war...there is the way it should be, the way our documents dictate vs the Facists running our nation right now.
Are you with the latter? If so, you are part of the army making war on the rest of us.
But since you are visiting Dr. Halls substack, I'll think the best and assume you share most of her values.
I like to read her because I see good intentions. I have no problem with people of a liberal persuasion being a lifelong Democrat and liberal until about 2014 when I watched the Democrat party move so far left that I felt abandoned and jumped ship. I do not recognize the principles of leftism as American. I consider the Democrat party to be fairly well hijacked by radicals. How else could New York City be on the verge of electing a bona fide communist and antisemite Islamist as mayor?
I consider MAGA be an obvious and predictable reaction to the hijacking of a great nation by the illiberal radical Left. I consider the demonization of all things Trump and all things MAGA to be done more in ignorance than in malice. I understand the firmness of the mindset because until 10 years ago, I shared it. People who do not understand that they are manipulated by a very partisan and very dishonest media have years of brainwashing and gaslighting overcome before they have a chance of seeing any of the positives surrounding MAGA. I could write a dissertation on it, but I’m not going to because there’s plenty to read for people who want to open their mind to ideas off the Democrat party thought plantation.
Mr. Mamdani is neither a communist or an antisemite.
He IS a Democratic Socialist - like Bernie. Like me.
He IS anti Netanyahu. Good.
He advocates for the Palestinians. Good.
He is a Muslim. And he may be the next mayor of one of the most Jewish cities in the country.
He ran on the unaffordability crisis. And that's the big tent now being created by Democrats and Independents.
As to a "thought plantation", please...The MSM helped us arrive at this Fascist Moment by sane washing and normalizing a misogynistic, demented, narcissistic criminal who now feasts on vengeance and calls it Christian. If this was a novel it wouldn't sell. Too crazy and improbable.
But it is true, Democrats helped all this happen. They let the Party of Oligarchs and Bible Thumping Haters steal the "populist" agenda. Left? Right? Nobody cares. People want safety, housing, healthcare, education, childcare and affordable decent food and water.
But I am curious. Where do you find what we would consider accurate and honest news?
Deborah, your advice might be helpful to married or unmarried couples. However it is NOT helpful to the many Americans whose Medicaid will be destroyed and whose livelihoods might well be destroyed by the recession, if not economic collapse that will result from t-rump’s so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” —- nor to the increasing number of immigrants who, largely based on the colour of their skin, are now being deported and imprisoned in t-rump’s new Alligator Alcatraz in the Florida Everglades.
Indeed many Americans now believe that another American Revolution is necessary to stop this terrible POTUS from doing still more damage to the people of the United States of America.
And as a Canadian 🇨🇦 my heart goes out to the many Americans who are experiencing this Great American Tragedy.
Choose love, choose peace, choose unity, choose humanity.
“Before the terrifying prospects now available to humanity, we see even more clearly that peace is the only goal worth struggling for. This is no longer a prayer but a demand to be made by all peoples to their governments — a demand to choose definitively between hell and reason.” - Albert Camus
I can remember when it was common to know someone for years without knowing what their politics were. It just never came up or if it did it wasn't a deal breaker in a relationship. There is nothing that requires everyone you know to agree with you on everything or do things the way you want them done. We as a nation have lost sight of this.
While in the service I met many white southerners and rural denizens. Most believed the wrong side won the civil war. Know your history. After the battles won, Lincoln shot and Andrew Johnson, a southerner, undid all the gains from the battles. Beginning with FDR, With the insight of Elinor, some battles were won. However this country has always been a series of battles and never a United States except when forced together to fight a common enemy. As Shakespeare said “adversity acquaints one with strange bedfellows.”
This is accurate and you are right. It’s amazing though when we find out that somebody we thought we liked actually supports people we think are total freaking evil idiots. The discovery has ruined many relationships.
I like pickup trucks. Other people like motorcycles. I don't like motorcycles. I don't think that people who like motorcycles are evil or stupid. I have friends who like motorcycles. I will never get them to not like motorcycles. I will not stop liking pickup trucks.
Yes, but there are no stakes involved in disagreeing about motorcycles. 🏍️
In politics, the stakes are high because people have different ideas about the underpinnings of America and what people think and how they vote matter.
So some relationships are important enough to stay off the subject and other relationships we may just decide to let go because we think the person’s values are warped. I have both such groups of people - survivors of the discord and casualties of the discord.
What’s sad about it is that if anybody really takes the time to understand opposing points of view, they can learn that people can draw very different conclusions and still be within the realm of good faith. Gaining such understanding better protect the quality of the relationship than just silently demonizing the other person‘s thinking and pretending to ignore it and focusing on the fact that you both like apple pie
It seems that much of society today involves one group demanding that another group do and believe what they want them to. It won't work. The result is that all sides retreat into the bunker of their beliefs. Facts and logic will never overcome hardened beliefs especially when on social media or the internet you can find support for virtually any position on any topic. There is always a way to find someone who will tell you how smart and right you are on any issue. I believe that there is a growing fatigue that is resulting in the best people on all sides sitting it out leaving only the most extreme people participating. Not good. I do not have a solution.
I’m pretty sure I agree mostly with what you just said, except that I think there are good people participating. Look forward to reading your solution.
This ASSUMES there ever was a marriage. This is a false assumption
Correct. There are people who should not be pandered to or appeased, only defeated. We may or may not disagree who these people are.
Such timely and important piece! Everyone needs to internalize this!
it's easy to internalize, it's harder to act out.
Beautiful as always, Dr Hall. Happy 4th of July.
One of the best things of yours that I've read, thanks Deborah. There is much more to be said, but it will take some time to work through.
One of the most truly patriotic Americans I know is a Latino native Texan. A brother in arms, he was a Screaming Eagle 82nd Airborne Ranger. He lives now with his Canadian wife in Toronto but visits his rental properties, family, and friends in Texas often. He truly cares about this country and speaks out eloquently against the white nationalist authoritarians who would destroy our democracy. Starting to age, he continually works out so as to be ready to physically fight should that become necessary. At 86, I can’t match that but I can and do speak out in multiple fora including in my own newsletter on Substack and on Facebook
I have another friendly acquaintance in the process of becoming a friend who spent 22 years in the U.S. Army as an enlisted soldier. He and I rarely agree politically but we respect each other’s service, and share a deep commitment to this country and its Constitution. I will never convince him not to love Donald Trump but I can get him to see individual issues differently and he occasionally opens my eyes to something I’ve overlooked.
What can people do about Trump's prisons? Even if millions stood against them, nothing would change, and, unfortunately, millions stand with them. I think that the US will have to play out whatever role it's chosen for itself. Every nation, every civilization runs it's course until it bottoms out, then begins to rebuild. 1933 happens over and over again. For over 8 decades I have watched the decline of the US. It's hard to stop a boulder rolling downhill. If people keep re-electing the same politicians, from both parities, nothing will change for the better. Look at RFK jr.; millions of people wanted him to become President. Can you imagine what policies he would have enacted? We have gone from the age of enlightenment to the age of insanity. A marriage is between 2 people, a nation is between millions of political entities, each vying for him/herself. Americans have been taught to fear any system that isn't called Democracy, yet the 3 least corrupt countries, according to the World Corruption List, are all Socialist.
Disagree with everything you said, but that’s what makes horse races
Ok, what's your version?
Is this David Angel the composer, arranger, alto player from the Casa Tropical, where the floor is always wet?
No, not the famous David Angel. More the infamous rabble rouser Angel!
The reason millions of people don’t object to detention facilities for illegal aliens on their way to deportation is because we voted against the invasion of 13+ million illegals condoned by whoever ran the Biden administration over the last four years.
They were asked to self deport and incentivized to do so with free plane fare home and $1000. If they want to take their chances, that’s their business. Pretending it’s a concentration camp doesn’t make it one just as pretending that socialist nations are not an abomination doesn’t alter the reality that the economic system called socialism has never worked on a large scale, and never will because it is contrary to human nature and an anathema to all freedom, loving people everywhere. It’s just a pitstop on the road to Stalinism.
It takes a certain mindset to set illegal aliens up at fancy hotels, and not all of us think that’s a great plan because we understand that a country needs borders to be a country
I agree that illegal aliens should be sent back to their home countries. I don't think that they should be sent to foreign prisons whom we pay to house them. I also don't like people mistakenly snatched off the street and taken to places where no one can find them. Do you really think that Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, and New Zealand are abominations? Democratic Socialism in not pre-Communist Socialism. I do think that it works better in small, homogenous populations. The US is too diverse for it to be successful here. The countries that I referenced are not pure Socialism, the government doesn't control the means of production and distribution. Do you think that "Alligator Alcatraz" isn't a concentration camp? It's not a normal prison. Look at the photos of it and compare them with photos of Nazi camps. Mississippi is a cesspool of these types of prisons. Read what the people who are promoting these prisons are saying. These people are evil minded. No human deserves to be treated like garbage. Imprison lawbreakers, don't dehumanize them. In the meantime, the worst of these criminals are still committing crimes in Colo., but it's easier to snatch people off the streets in L.A. than to look for them in Colo.
Good article. Forgiving a cheating partner is tough business. Every time. Serial abuse of vows. In fact and/or practice, requires facing hard facts about the validity of the union.
What a great way to speak about politics as personal. Thank you Deborah.
Half my family is MAGA. But they're good folks. They just don't know. The people have been betrayed by their leaders. But the people will wake up someday and get to work repairing the damage. The Red White and Blue will wave on. Happy 4th!
Half my family are not MAGA. They just don’t know.
There is nothing about your comment that is more accurate than the above.
People can come to different conclusions about who to vote for with the exact same degree of good faith.
What you're suggesting is a start people can make. And I think we already see a bit of that on Substack when someone says something that really bothers you but you stay in the conversation and pick out a plus point you can both agree on. Then if you are both invested enough in it, the conversation continues even if there is only a tiny bit of healing. Still worth going after. The far too late point is totally valid. But the it's never too late work on cleaning up the mess point is just as valid.
In 1855 Lincoln wrote this in a letter to Joshua Speed: "As a nation, we began by declaring "all men are created equal." We now practically read it "all men are created equal, except negroes." When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read "all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics." When it comes to this, I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty-to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy."
Lincoln was expressing frustration with the anti-immigrant sentiments of the nativist "Know-Nothing Party".
What you wrote is lovely and certainly is desirable over the alternative. The only problem is, from my experience in trying what you proposed, is that MAGA folks aren't even on board for trying to find common ground.
“The only problem is, from my experience in trying what you proposed, is that MAGA folks aren't even on board for trying to find common ground.”
You are not looking to have common ground with ideas you disagree with. Neither am I.
I think you miss the issue and the solution.
It’s not about finding common ground with people or ideas we disagree with.
It is about the intellectual rigor and honesty of seeing through the lying and partisan media and reading enough about opposing points of view to not demonize them and understand that people come to them in good faith just like you come to your ideas in good faith. When that happens, two people of different views can respect each other and be friends the way Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg did. It’s a higher level of understanding than just secretly thinking poor you, you’re just deluded. I am pro-Trump and I don’t have a single idea that I can’t justify in good faith. Of course he’s not perfect, are you?
Thomas Wolfe famously wrote, "But we are the sum of all the moments of our lives—all that is ours is in them: we cannot escape or conceal it."
I am not RBG and MAGA supporters are not Scalia.
I live in rural central Pennsylvania, often referred to as Pennsyltucky--the geographic and political space between Pittsburgh in the west and Philadelphia in the southeast part of the state.
You characterized a higher level of understanding as more than "just secretly thinking poor you, you're just deluded."--which has never been part of my thinking about anyone. Also, you never asked me, only assumed, what I see as common ground and what my moments are. Therein lies the problem.
For me, it's not about "the intellectual rigor and honesty or seeing through the lying and partisan media and reading opposing points of view." I question my own points of view, and I am a voracious reader. I am also an avid listener. I couldn't have confidence in the core of who I am without doing those things.
I specifically mentioned in my comment that it was MY experience with MAGA supporters when I wrote about MAGA not even being onboard for trying to find common ground--which is really an understatement on my part.
It really and truly is in the sum of my moments that MAGA now, and far right political supporters of all stripes prior to MAGA, that causes them to want nothing to do with me on any level. I've had conversations that started out with talking about, for instance, music, only to devolve into partisan politics if I mentioned I like the music (with no mention of political views) of a certain musician who they considered a patently radical leftist. Then comes the attack claiming I have "TDS" because that musician has "TDS" before walking away from me.
I once worked for a Family Planning and WIC agency. The simple question to me about where I worked at a social gathering by a college professor turned into a loud attack when I answered him. I said nothing in reply and left in tears. That was years before MAGA and those folks from back then are still here. In other words, even if I mentioned where I was employed, I was demonized.
I could tell you more of my moments and I will if you ask that of me.
I don't know your moments and won't assume them as you have done with me.
There are also those who think that it’s in their best interest to make sure we stay divided. Most Americans (arguably most people everywhere) would agree with your statement – “I never ask you to do something I am unwilling to do.” I’d add that I’ll never attempt to coerce you into doing something you don’t want to do, and I suspect that most people would agree with that as well. Anyone who doesn’t, despite what they might say, is more interested in power than anything else and cannot be trusted in anything. Far more of us see the danger and will do whatever we can to find that common ground we can all stand on and solutions to the real problems we face as people and as a country. Lia Thomas, Hispanic farm workers, and books about two male penguins raising a chick aren’t real problems and anyone concerned can solve their personal problem simply by ignoring it. The dividers want us to ignore our common humanity and focus on the minor differences that don’t really impact on much of anything.
The essential basis for reunion is for each of us to mind our own business and, when we have business together, to mind it by conversation and agreement. Saying the Pledge together is basically repeating our vows of union as Americans and renewing our support for the Declaration of Independence as updated by Andy Borowitz in an outstanding piece celebrating the 4th. https://open.substack.com/pub/borowitzreport/p/a-new-declaration-of-independence?r=2jsw1&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
The solution to the dividers among us, since shutting up is exactly counter to their strategy for keeping us at loggerheads is to set them aside when we’re working with each other. We can be there for each other without any reference to anyone’s politics and we must have enough self-respect and confidence to recognize that not everything we favor is consistent with the need to work together and respect each other. Being willing to suppress our own egos and get past our fear of being wrong about something is the first and most important step in saving the civil union that this country is based on. Insisting that anyone we support for public office do the same is an almost equally important second step. Celebrate the 4th in memory of those who pledged their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor to the ideals of the original Declaration of Independence and we can pledge our own to its renewal with “malice toward none, and charity for all.” Welcome home.
I love the spirit and idealism in this letter. My heart agrees. But my head is witnessing something evil. Millions of Americans are treating "others" as subhuman. Read about Garcia's experience in El Salvador. Look at the concentration camps being built. This is not a marriage. This is becoming a war.
I'll talk to anyone who says they are a Republican. But if they applaud the bill $Trump will sign today, they are cruel. They are loving murder.
This is not a marriage anymore. It's a war we have win.
MAGA must be vanquished. When Republicans decide to be fiscally and compassionately conservative, we can shake hands and work together on solutions. Until then, man the battle stations.
There was a time...my folks were Eisenhower Republicans. Their best friends were Democrats. That was before the Republican Party decided to embrace authoritarianism and brutality. If they were alive today, they would not recognize their party. They would be horrified that they fought fascism, won and now it is embedded in their own party.
I consider your understanding of opposing views to be as close to nil as you can get. Your mind is closed so I won’t elaborate.
MAGA is not an opposing view. A discussion between fiscal conservatives and advocates of social safety nets...that can be a healthy process of opposing views.
A discussion about the best way to maintain infrastructure and provide safe drinking water, feeding the poor, housing homeless Veterans and so many important topics can involve opposing views.
But when it comes to honoring the Constitution, the rule of law, the role of Congress in terms of funding and who should authorize war...there is the way it should be, the way our documents dictate vs the Facists running our nation right now.
Are you with the latter? If so, you are part of the army making war on the rest of us.
But since you are visiting Dr. Halls substack, I'll think the best and assume you share most of her values.
I like to read her because I see good intentions. I have no problem with people of a liberal persuasion being a lifelong Democrat and liberal until about 2014 when I watched the Democrat party move so far left that I felt abandoned and jumped ship. I do not recognize the principles of leftism as American. I consider the Democrat party to be fairly well hijacked by radicals. How else could New York City be on the verge of electing a bona fide communist and antisemite Islamist as mayor?
I consider MAGA be an obvious and predictable reaction to the hijacking of a great nation by the illiberal radical Left. I consider the demonization of all things Trump and all things MAGA to be done more in ignorance than in malice. I understand the firmness of the mindset because until 10 years ago, I shared it. People who do not understand that they are manipulated by a very partisan and very dishonest media have years of brainwashing and gaslighting overcome before they have a chance of seeing any of the positives surrounding MAGA. I could write a dissertation on it, but I’m not going to because there’s plenty to read for people who want to open their mind to ideas off the Democrat party thought plantation.
Thank for responding so thoughtfully.
The Democrats are a flawed party. Absolutely.
Mr. Mamdani is neither a communist or an antisemite.
He IS a Democratic Socialist - like Bernie. Like me.
He IS anti Netanyahu. Good.
He advocates for the Palestinians. Good.
He is a Muslim. And he may be the next mayor of one of the most Jewish cities in the country.
He ran on the unaffordability crisis. And that's the big tent now being created by Democrats and Independents.
As to a "thought plantation", please...The MSM helped us arrive at this Fascist Moment by sane washing and normalizing a misogynistic, demented, narcissistic criminal who now feasts on vengeance and calls it Christian. If this was a novel it wouldn't sell. Too crazy and improbable.
But it is true, Democrats helped all this happen. They let the Party of Oligarchs and Bible Thumping Haters steal the "populist" agenda. Left? Right? Nobody cares. People want safety, housing, healthcare, education, childcare and affordable decent food and water.
But I am curious. Where do you find what we would consider accurate and honest news?
Deborah, your advice might be helpful to married or unmarried couples. However it is NOT helpful to the many Americans whose Medicaid will be destroyed and whose livelihoods might well be destroyed by the recession, if not economic collapse that will result from t-rump’s so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” —- nor to the increasing number of immigrants who, largely based on the colour of their skin, are now being deported and imprisoned in t-rump’s new Alligator Alcatraz in the Florida Everglades.
Indeed many Americans now believe that another American Revolution is necessary to stop this terrible POTUS from doing still more damage to the people of the United States of America.
And as a Canadian 🇨🇦 my heart goes out to the many Americans who are experiencing this Great American Tragedy.
Thank God for Donald Trump. You’re glad you’re in Canada. I’m glad I’m here.