Relationships
3 Ways to Stop the Election from Harming Your Relationships
To heal our country, start by building bridges with your friends and family.
Posted October 27, 2020
I’m writing this post a week before the 2020 U.S. presidential election, during a time in which our country is as polarized as it’s been in my lifetime. Tempers are running high. Political lawn signs are being vandalized on both sides. Relationships are becoming frayed. Ideological differences are creating deep, sometimes intractable, and tragic fissures. Perhaps this is happening to you.
If you find the polarization in the U.S. upsetting, consider that your relationships may represent a microcosm of the country. To heal our country, you can begin by healing fractures with those closest to you, building bridges, and creating meaningful solutions to the problems you collectively care about.
Here’s how:
1. Recognize the common values you share. Ask the person with whom you’ve chosen to build a bridge what qualities are most important to them. Chances are they will name qualities that are also important to you. It’s highly doubtful that they will say greed, cruelty, violence, or hatred. It’s more likely you’ll both have such qualities as compassion, integrity, courage, kindness, and honesty on your respective lists.
2. Ask the person what problems they care most about solving and uncover issues that concern you both. Even if you disagree with the policies and approaches of the opposing candidates, chances are you both want to live in a world in which all people, other species, and ecosystems have the ability to survive and thrive.
3. Once you have named these commonalities, shift away from arguing about the candidates’ policies and behaviors and work together as collaborative solutionaries to address a problem together. Because you cannot do solutionary work without ascertaining the facts, start by agreeing to fact-check and find evidence for the problem and its causes. Next, seek out factual information to understand the many interconnected systems that contribute to the problem. You’ll also want to identify those who are harmed by and those who benefit from the problem and the systems perpetuating it so you can take everyone’s interests – including other species and the environment – into consideration. Finally, devise a solution that does the most good and least harm for everyone. To the best of your ability implement your solution and share it widely.
If you do these three things, chances are that you’ll not only prevent your relationships from deteriorating, but you’ll also model the kind of solutionary thinking and action that the U.S. most needs right now. If you can do it, so can politicians.
My friend Kristen Speranza wrote the following about her experiences with Republicans, Democrats, and Independents:
“Some of the best people I know are Republicans. They are frequently very concrete thinkers and care about the people in their sphere very passionately. They are always available to lend a helping hand.
Some of the best people I know are Democrats. They frequently think about things in a more abstract way and care about people they have never met and problems that are far away. They care about so many things so deeply, they sometimes need to be reminded to care for themselves.
Some of the best people I know are Independents. They are frequently creative thinkers who like to test and verify things. They frequently ask a lot of questions and are frequently dissatisfied with the answers they receive. They will keep turning things over in their minds until they find an answer that works for them.”
Whether or not you have noticed similar characteristics among people you know, I hope you’ll agree that there are caring people in your circle of friends and family across different ideological and political perspectives. I also hope you’ll agree that the venomous nature of the current political atmosphere damages not only our personal relationships but also our communities and nation.
It is true that much rides on this election, and that many people will find the results difficult to accept, but as Martin Luther King, Jr. said, "We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope." That infinite hope can and must be grounded in action. As Professor David Orr wrote, “Hope is a verb with its sleeves rolled up.” So reach out to someone you love who thinks differently from you, roll up your sleeves, and become solutionaries together. And make sure to vote.
The free guide, How to Be a Solutionary, may be helpful in doing collaborative solutionary work.
