Maybe your way isn’t the only way

OUR OPINION

There are reasons people act the way they do.

There are legitimate reasons for the way they vote, regardless of how they vote. There are legitimate reasons people believe the way they believe and are the way they are. Each person’s experiences are unique to only them and those experiences inform how they behave.

We have forgotten that.

There’s no need to rehash the state of things in this editorial. We’ve all experienced vitriol from “the other side.” We’ve all thrown our hands up in disgust at the things friends or family say or write on social media. At the same time, most of us are guilty of flinging our own venom at people we don’t understand.

This isn’t a call for “turning down the temperature” or a lecture on the importance of freedom of speech. We’ve heard those phrases and sentiments ad nauseam. And I don’t write this out of fear of more political violence in our country or because I worry about a deeper divide between us, even though there is plenty to worry about and fear.

This is about the adage of attracting more flies with honey than vinegar. If you want someone to do something, be nice. If you want to change someone’s mind, you have to understand where they’re coming from.

Calling someone a stupid fascist isn’t the way to sway their vote toward you. Understanding they may be struggling financially because stuff is way too expensive and no one seems to be doing anything about it, is.

I have friends and family all along the political spectrum and I hear a lot about how they think things should be. What I don’t ever hear, however, is an acknowledgement that the “other side” might have a point.

As I write this, I can already hear arguments coming from all sides that the “other side” took it too far already. “They” went too far left or too far right and this isn’t the time for compromise, it’s time to fight! To that I ask, how do you think we got here? We got here by not listening to each other, by arguing instead of discussing.

Why we stopped listening is a topic for another day.

In the meantime, let’s make an attempt to understand where other people are coming from.

Compromise is a word we all learned in grade school but have since forgotten.