Liberals and conservatives don’t have to be at war

Americans have been immersed for years now in heavy pronouncements from politicians of all stripes portraying leaders of the other party as, more or less, an embodiment of evil (”fascist … bigoted … crazy … corrupt … radical … dangerous”).
It’s hard to blame anyone though, given the important consequences of our elections, for overlaying a spiritual lens over what’s taking place in our fast-moving political landscape. The problem comes when we automatically conflate “good vs. evil” as neatly falling along current political lines. Russian dissident and Christian author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn believed otherwise — asserting that “the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either — but right through every human heart.”
That’s a very Christian thing to say and seems a very timely message for the United States right now — especially surrounded by moral absolutism evident on all sides, along with many others who find the U.S. election a very complicated decision.
One thing seems to be missing especially among the most passionate partisans today — namely, an appreciation of the goodness of heart and intent among our political opposites. I first started discovering this during my years studying at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign when I “lived among the liberals.”
As a conservative kid from Utah in a very progressive graduate program in psychology, I stayed fairly quiet at first. Along with some fear about being judged for my beliefs, I really did have a lot to learn — so I tried to listen.
Two years into the program, my 22-year-old, returned-missionary brother Sam was going through cancer treatment. I’ll never forget getting his call in the department computer lab when he told me they were sending him home from the hospital. The doctors had nothing else to do for him, except for recommending hospice care.
Only one other person was in the computer lab that day, my progressive classmate Adrienne Abramowitz. Noticing something was very wrong, she came over and just held me in her arms as I wept.
When Sam passed away, I was surrounded with startling love from professors and classmates who mourned with me. This same community welcomed me into their homes on birthdays, encouraged and mentored me — while yes, listening when I would share a different perspective.
When Barack Obama took office in 2009, I kept hearing people insist that the new president was “trying to hurt America.”
My response was often something like: “I know a lot of people who think like Obama — and I’ve never once seen any of them twirling a mustache and plotting the overthrow of the republic.”
That wasn’t just a joke. Far from signs of malevolent intent, I was in awe during these formative educational years of the goodness I witnessed, from professor Nicole Allen’s innovative research on community coalitions rallying to fight domestic violence, to Elaine and Mikhail Shpungin’s passion for creative practices to reconcile people in deep conflict. And insightful neuroscientist Wendy Heller found time to look up alternative remedies for my mother’s cancer-related nausea, when she wasn’t chairing my dissertation work on depression.
Instead of a battleground, my experience as a conservative graduate student showed me the beauty of the academy, and what happens when different perspectives come together with respect. In that short space of time, a new reality took hold of me strongly. The goodness of these so-called “crazy liberals” was simply undeniable — coming to represent a deep, existential contradiction to the liberals-hate-America rhetoric I had heard in years prior from right-wing provocateurs online.
I’ve wondered in the years since whether many fellow conservatives simply haven’t had a similar opportunity to deeply love — and be loved by — their political opposites. For me, the real-life liberals I came to know and love defied the rhetoric about liberals — over and over again.
And I wasn’t as scared. Or angry. These conversations consistently left me more hopeful, more curious and happier too.
Transformative experiences included those with my co-facilitator for a new liberal-conservative dialogue class, Danielle Rynczak, and Phil Neisser, an atheist Marxist professor at State University of New York, who became one of my dearest friends, even though we disagreed vociferously about pretty much everything (”You’re not as crazy as I thought, but you’re still wrong”).
For years after I returned to Utah, Liz Joyner mentored a small group of us in how to create Village Square town halls, which defines itself as “a nervy bunch of liberals and conservatives who believe that disagreement and dialogue make for a good conversation, a good country, and a good time.”
With Jay Griffith, Emily Christopulos, Ross Collier, Shelly Sawyer Jenson and others, we had a lot of fun working to spark more cross-partisan friendships locally. Liz and I started collecting stories of unorthodox friendships, with the eagerness of my boys collecting basketball cards.
Among other things, I came to admire my liberal friends’ willingness to question, even if they took that too far sometimes (Can we stop doubting happy families as a crucial basis for human civilization?).
When I got some hostile push-back for public writing about marriage and family, a progressive Episcopalian John Backman provided some of my best comfort and guidance, telling me that I needed to “go read the book of Jeremiah.”
Years of dialogue with groups of politically diverse Americans also convinced me that we all have a conservative and a liberal side. Do you know anyone who wants everything to stay the same — or anyone who wants everything to change?
Me neither. If so, how much could we gain by listening deeply to those hungry for something to change, while giving the same attention to those devoted to defending something they don’t want undermined?
Colleagues from Living Room Conversations, Debilyn Molineaux and Joan Blades, have taken pains to check-in on how our family has been doing over years of supporting two disabled children. Joan, a proud Berkeley liberal, randomly texts me photos from lovely morning walks and often tells me how much she wishes she could fly out and tend our boys so Monique and I can get out on a date. One woman, Tracy Hollister, who fought for marriage equality in North Carolina, once told me how shocked she was after realizing she felt more friendship with a Latter-day Saint from Utah than her “gay boss.”
That’s how it’s gone for two decades now.
When our daughter Emma died last fall, once again, none of these larger sociopolitical differences mattered. The love that carried our family crossed all boundaries as friends and classmates mourned with us from a distance. Some of the sweetest comfort during the most difficult months came from my gay Christian colleague Arthur Peña and my agnostic Jewish friend Alex Rhodes, with their gentle check-ins: “Just thinking of you … that’s all.”
I wish everyone could have the experience of adoring someone who disagrees with their politics and theology. It’s life-changing. Even though I’ve remained reliably conservative on social and moral questions — and even while we continue to try and persuade each other — I’ve learned so much from these relationships and conversations, which have profoundly changed who I am. I’ve also found so much joy and sweetness in our various correspondences over the years.
By the way, many of these people — not all — are likely supporting Vice President Kamala Harris for president this week, and with just as much love about America as any of my rural, conservative neighbors.
The takeaway for me personally is this: Thoughtful, goodhearted people disagree about almost everything, including politics.
That discovery changes so much. It’s why I believe liberals and conservatives don’t have to be at war … we really don’t!
Not in our schools. Not in our homes. Not in our congregations. Not in our journalism. And not even in our politics.
Yes, of course, policy differences matter. So many of them are life-and-death issues, with real consequences for vulnerable groups — including the unborn, the sick, the poor, the migrants and various minority groups.
To suggest we don’t need to be at war doesn’t at all mean we collapse into some mushy moderate middle — taking a laissez-faire attitude. It means we actually talk about all of these differences, in real conversations that actually seek understanding, rather than the superficial and distracting shadow-boxing we see all around us.
This is no “all is well in America” message. The direction we are going as a nation is concerning to most of us, isn’t it? Details of what’s happening in our country matter, and we (every one of us) need to raise our voices about what that should be.
It’s also fair to point out that different ideas and plans really are in combat, and can’t always coexist in the same policy or program. There is an ideological battle taking place that really does often reflect straight-up good versus evil — a contest in which we need to stay engaged.
But we can do that without equating evil ideas and evil people. When a very bad idea is being promoted, that’s especially when we need to see the person doing the promoting as misled, but worth engaging with respect.
I personally believe very little of the real learning, progress and growth we dearly need takes place in a culture war environment. That’s because majorities of Americans self-censor — while the loudest voices among us (“professional polarizers,” as my friend Liz Joyner calls them) dominate airwaves and shape an increasingly toxic conversation.
If we can’t talk anymore in productive ways about the questions that matter, then nothing else matters … because we literally can’t make progress on any problem at all. For me, that trumps any other policy consideration.
This is also why I believe it’s urgent to stop confusing “good versus evil” with “liberal versus conservative” — shifting instead to a more redemptive worldview. To my mind, the alternative to noxious “us versus them” rhetoric everywhere is simply Christianity.
It wasn’t until the last decade’s mounting rhetoric about inescapable conflict between men and women, Black and white, rich and poor, gay and straight, believers and nonbelievers, citizens and immigrant, that I realized how revolutionary Paul’s teachings to the Romans were: “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.”
All means all. That means liberals falling short, and conservatives falling short. Believers falling short. And nonbelievers too.
Black and white, rich and poor, gay and straight, immigrants and natives … all falling short — in a way that levels the playing field completely.
Instead of pointing fingers across the way at that person or that group ruining America, leaders of faith across the world invite people to point the finger back at ourselves: What do we need to be learning? How do we need to be changing and growing?
I’ll never forget visiting with one of my neighbors years ago in Farmington who had stepped away from our faith. The tension was tangible in the air, as this family seemed to wonder about the purpose of my visit.
Until they brought up their son who was suicidal — prompting me to share some of what I’d learned about depression recovery. Immediately, all the estrangement evaporated, as we pierced through all the sociopolitical and theological differences. In an instant, we were just fellow human beings worried about the same suffering, sad boy.
I dream of a day when Americans, and people all over the world, arrive at the same discovery about those many “enemies” they spent so much of their precious mortality agonizing and agitated about — stopped in their tracks to realize that these people too, regardless of who they vote for, suffer and yearn for love — wanting the same happiness for their families that we all do.
Does that really have to be so hard to see?
For creative ways to proactively seek peace with your political opposite, check out our 10-part pre-election series in partnership with KUOW, Seattle’s NPR news station and “A Braver Way” podcast, led by Mónica Guzmán — a singular, inspired peacemaker in America today.
And if all else fails, it’s hard to hate someone you laugh with: