On June 3rd this year, US Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito was caught on tape talking about the battle between America’s ideological poles, citing “fundamental” differences between the two sides that he says “can’t be compromised” and calling to “return our country to a place of godliness”. The remarkably candid audio, initially published by Rolling Stone, goes further to capture his view that one side or the other must ‘win’.

Any way you look at it, our nation is deeply entrenched in an ideological civil war. The stakes could not be higher. For anyone who values, even cherishes our Constitutional Democracy, this will be a ‘winner takes all’ election with the outcome having a profound impact for the foreseeable future. If President Biden wins, the MAGA crowd will undoubtedly become much more aggressive and double down on their strategies for blocking progress from the left. If Donald Trump wins, he is already on record as saying he intends to ‘punish’ anyone on the left with whom he disagrees. Either way, the result of the election portends more gridlock, more polarization, more resentment of ‘the other,’ and a worsening of the dark mood that has captured our society for the last decade.

So what can one person do?

I am not going to give up my well-grounded assessments of my ‘other’, the Trump storm troopers and their enablers in the House of Representatives. I assume those in that camp are just as adamant in their assessments of me.

While I am not optimistic that the current state of affairs can be resolved, I can imagine one scenario that might make a difference, at least at an interpersonal level. I, as an individual, can have conversations for commitment and for relationship with individual ‘others’.

A Conversation FOR Commitment

This would start with both of us acknowledging:

1. It is evident we are both trapped in a view that the ‘other’ is wrong in their beliefs, policies, practices, and their view of the world and the future.
2. Neither of us trusts the other.
3. Neither of us really respects the other.
4. Neither of us sees any real room for compromise on our differences.
5. Both of us share a common future. Whatever happens, like it or not, we will both be affected by the outcome of this upcoming election.
6. If our differences were strictly about beliefs, we could probably just agree to disagree and go forward in a civil and respectful manner. Unfortunately, we must elect our next president. Both presidential candidates have committed to very different pathways and policies which will directly affect our respective ways of living, our lifestyles, our values, and, ultimately, our quality of life. At this point, neither of us can be sure how the future will unfold or what’s going to happen if either candidate wins.

Then we would ask each other, “Would you be willing to have a conversation, the outcome of which is that both of us will commit to unconditionally support the winner of the next election – whoever that may be?”

In other words, can we both agree to trust the electoral process? Can we both accept that, given all the scrutiny since 2020, the 2024 process will be legitimate?

If not, our conversation is over. I would see no possibility for our having a workable relationship. I would have to acknowledge that we live in different worlds. However, if we’ve gotten this far and we are both willing to trust in the electoral process, the next step would be to have what I call a “conversation for relationship”.

A Conversation FOR Relationship

The purpose of this conversation would be to let go of the past and agree that our personal relationship is larger than our political differences. My side of such a conversation might sound something like this:

1. “It takes two to have a log jam—and I am as responsible as you are for this.”
2. “I acknowledge that all my negative assessments of you reside in me—and I know that they are inherently neither true nor false.”
3. “My assessments are about the GOP leadership and, while those assessments are well-grounded, they are not about you personally.”
4. “In the past, however, I have made it personal, insofar as I’ve related to your support of Donald Trump as a rejection of my beliefs and what I consider a mountain of reasons why supporting him is a direct affront to our democracy.”
5. “Please forgive me for making this assessment about you and denying you the freedom to have whatever beliefs you have and the freedom to vote for whomever you choose. I forgive you for all the assessments you’ve made about me and those who share my views.”
6. “I request that we not talk about politics or the upcoming election unless or until one or the other of us is willing to honestly say we are open and willing to hear the arguments, whatever they are, of the ‘other’ for whichever candidate they will be voting for in November.”

For the time being, we Americans remain ‘stuck’. Polarization continues to increase nationally. I don’t know if the ideological conflict will be resolved in my lifetime. On a day-to-day basis, however, I think the only place from which one can find sanity and peace of mind is to view the ‘others’ with compassion and tolerance. To acknowledge that, whatever suffering I may be experiencing in the face of our fractured nation, the ‘others’ are experiencing it also.

Human beings may not have a choice about whether we ‘other’ each other. But we always have a choice in how we relate to ‘the other’.

Compassion is recognizing yourself and your humanity in others. Compassion can and does include everything we resist or even abhor. It’s the closest thing there is to “Love your neighbor as yourself” or “Do unto others as you would wish they would do unto you.”

Perhaps living the Golden Rule is the resolution to polarization.

Originally published July 9, 2024 on Jim Selman’s Substack “At the Crossroads“