A Family Thing
We had a family reunion, twenty-six of us. It was my sister and brother-in-laws birthday (seventy!!) and we all travelled to Cleveland to celebrate. We had a blast, lots of food, lots of drink, lots of laughing and high spirits. It was one of those celebrations that will require a week to recover.
Relatives came; from Ohio, from New Jersey, from Colorado and Arizona. It wasn’t a funeral or a wedding; we could have fun without a significant “event” beyond the celebration itself. And like any family in our current political era, we brought widely divergent political viewpoints to the occasion.
Our family trends from extreme “Resistors” to Libertarians to died in the wool conservatives, and while we don’t necessarily have any true “MAGA Hat Trumpers” we still are aware of everyone’s difference. For most of the weekend, our political talk remained “among ourselves”: the “Resistance” wing debated the latest Congressional moves and sorted through the candidates for 2020; then quickly altered the subject when the “non-resistors” came within earshot. Since that was my end of the family political spectrum, I’m not sure what the “other” side did; but I expect they had a few of the same kind of conclaves.
But later on during the two evenings of the weekend, when great food, craft beer and Irish whiskey helped breakdown barriers, we gingerly “crossed the line.” Gently, across a border established by the round banquet table, two sides began to communicate. Surprisingly, it didn’t erupt in angry words and recriminations: “how could you support;” “do you regret choosing not to chose in 2016.” We found areas of agreement. Both sides allowed that the true evil of our current political system is money; if the process of needing millions of dollars to run for office doesn’t change, than corrupting influences, on all sides of the spectrum, will continue.
But despite our tentative areas of agreement, the haunting prediction of “civil war” was also spoken. How can our nation, so divided and so fragmented into pockets of different “facts” and seemingly different values, ever recover? In a nation with a choice of either silence or argument, with no alternative of calm conversation; how will we ever return to a time when we can all agree on what America is?
Into the night it was more conversation, this time about climate change. It became an issue of “I don’t believe your facts, I have my own.” It took a while to get past AOC and the Green New Deal and cattle farts and cheeseburgers; to more serious consideration of how we produce our energy, and why we can’t lead the world in finding new sources of energy. But at the end of that conversation, to one it came down to a deep distrust of government; anything that the “government” is for, then it must be opposed.
But in the small hours of the morning, two older men, friends for fifty years, reached for understanding. We talked about our families, about the uniting force of love that crossed political and ideological lines. We talked about the ability of smaller governments, of towns and counties, to focus on the practical problems of their communities, and let go the partisanship of our national discourse. On the macro scale there seemed to be little hope of change, but on the micro scale; family, neighborhood, towns; there is still the ability to unite to solve problems and to love each other.
We are an extended family; extended in age, geography, and political beliefs. We were able to celebrate the birthday of our siblings, parents, grandparents and cousins together. There was no screaming (other that the two year olds) and there was no disgust. And there probably were no minds changed either. But in fact we were able to discuss our differences and be Americans in celebration together across partisan divides: it was because of love.
That’s where Americans will need to start. We aren’t ready to put down our partisan sword and shield; we aren’t ready to listen to each other on a national scale. But we can start to tentatively reach out to those closest to us; our family, our neighborhoods, our towns. That’s where we can begin to piece our nation back together again – one little group at a time. And as my old friend said, with can use love to transcend our differences.
