Georgians have been inundated with political calls, texts and flyers this year. For months, we could not watch TV without a barrage of dark commercials highlighting the opposing candidate’s evils. I think most people let out a sigh of relief, at least on some level, casting their vote: We were ready to be done with all the politics.
But sifting through the reactions after Nov. 5, I can’t help but think that maybe our problem is that we weren’t talking about politics enough.
Credit: Handout
Credit: Handout
I had been a lifelong Republican and served as the policy director for former Gov. Sonny Perdue, a Republican. For years, I have wanted strong economic policies that enable businesses and the people who work for them to thrive; a strong national defense and local law enforcement that can help everyone feel safe; government that is efficient and effective; and policies that support the integrity of every life.
I have always enjoyed talking policy, and in my time as a student at Harvard and later at Emory, it was often, as the lone conservative, with people who held different opinions or approached these same goals with different strategies.
This election season, I was saddened when no alternative to Donald Trump gained traction in the primaries. I had strong convictions as a mother and citizen that I couldn’t vote for someone who openly mocked and threatened, boldly lied and demonstrated a disregard for our constitutional system of government. I was somber and perplexed when election night showed how much of the country held a different opinion. I kept these reactions largely to myself.
To be clear, I had political conversations with people who think like me, who shared my sense of, “Aren’t you saddened by?”, “Aren’t you glad that?”, or “Can you believe?” However, I often avoided in-the-flesh conversations with people with contrary opinions, both on the left and the right, voyeuristically gazing at alternative viewpoints through social media posts by high school friends, former colleagues and distant family.
Though I never would have said it before, over the past eight years I have grown to understand politics as personal. I am not alone in this shift. Exit polling has become increasingly unreliable, partly attributable to the fact that voters lie to pollsters about their voting habits.
And it’s not just that we can’t tell the truth to strangers. A progressive nonprofit released an ad this election reminding women that their votes were private from their spouses, implying they might need to lie about their votes. Are we in a moment where we cannot manage friction of ideas within even the most intimate of human relationships?
I know within the walls of my church, the street on which I live and the family into which I was born, there are people I dearly love who voted differently from me. We do not discuss this face-to-face. We shy away. We assume. We judge. We have avoided actual, real-life conversations about politics, and, in doing so, I’d argue that we have avoided one another.
Our hopes, fears, desires and ideas have been sequestered to an echo chamber, depriving one another the beautiful oxygen of communal friction. We are suffocating. We have tried to avoid things getting awkward, and, in the process, we’ve let them get hateful.
From the left and the right, we have become a nation of bright-line opinions, us and them, good and evil, life and death. I am not advocating equivocation, but what if instead of canceling, we tried to be more curious about the things people we know and love hold dear?
What if instead of seeking safety in conversation, we worked together to develop the skills of respectful disagreement and gradual refinement? What if instead of sharing our hot take in a post, meme or reel, we shared a hot meal, a walk or a pint with someone who thinks differently, getting eye-to-eye and learning more about the parts of each other that affect our votes.
What if we consumed fewer political ideas online but increased our dose of idea exchange in person?
The majority of Americans polled think our country is on the wrong track. We cannot change this if we keep politics personal. Whether you think Nov. 5 marked the beginning of a hopeful era or the death knell of civility, many people in our country think differently from you.
Do you know why? I don’t.
I need to listen more. I need to share my voice. I suspect you do too. Our families, our neighborhoods, our churches, our friendships, our political parties and ultimately our country will be enriched by engaging curiously and in the flesh with people who do not vote like we do.
Perhaps we need to have more conversations about politics this Thanksgiving.
Hannah Heck, a lawyer, founded a public policy, advocacy and consulting practice. She lives in Atlanta and spends most of her time in board service, supporting her four children and writing about life raising a son with Down syndrome.
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