When did it become impossible to agree to disagree?
How did it become so difficult to have civil conversations, with differing viewpoints without disintegrating into name calling?
One of the first times I was on the air at KDKA Radio, a listener called in and said, “I’m going to call you Eileen”. I was confused until she said “You lean to the left.” I thought it was cute, we laughed and continued the conversation. We never agreed, but we TALKED.
There is a regular listener, who I will only call “J” here because I didn’t ask his permission to talk about him or our conversations. J writes to me in private messages all the time. There is NO question we are at opposite ends of the political spectrum. But I look forward to our regular exchange of ideas as we make the case for our respective causes or candidates. We’ve never met, but we couldn’t be MORE different. But the healthy exchanges that we have mean a lot. They are NOT mean spirited, we have never called each other a name. We just exchange viewpoints.
Something happened to this country - and we lost the ability to exchange ideas, “debate” issues, or just get along, even though we might not share the same point of view.
It seems as if we don’t care much about what makes sense and what doesn’t. What’s more important these days, is what party is supporting it, what party is against it and then lining up with our “party”. I am not convinced that is healthy for our country.
My circle of friends is diverse. Racially, politically, religiously, economically and the list goes on and on.
There will be times when I disagree with everyone about something, not always and never mean spirited. If someone says, “You’re nuts”, it is said lightly in jest and we all laugh. We listen to one another. We may not now, or ever agree. At one time, that’s what made the world “go around.” Now, that seems to be what divides us.
We have reached a point where sometimes, some people are arguing and fighting for things they don’t even understand. They don’t like it, because Democrats support it, or the Republicans sponsored it. It’s a bad idea just because it came from the “other side of the aisle.” How limiting is that view point of the world?
No one person, or one party can fix US.
We could as usual, pick sides here and argue about how we got here, who’s fault it is BUT does that help us fix it?
We could play the “but what about” game until the sun sets, but will we be better off?
I used to love politics. I loved election season, meeting the candidates, participating in debates. But that was before our elected officials or those running for office began calling each other names, hitting below the belt, and focused less on what would make my life better and more on their party agendas.
When I was raising my own children, I wasn’t worried about the future as much as I am now. Maybe it’s the “grandmother’s” perspective, maybe its because I feel as if we’ve gone backwards, not forward. I am worried about the future for my grands.
They are young right now and carefree. They like to play outside, run and blow bubbles. They like to laugh, read stories and make s’mores.
They wear masks, because that’s the world they are growing up in. They don’t like or dislike them. It’s just what they do.
But I fear they are going to realize the world they are inheriting is far from perfect. I guess like so many generations before them, they’ll try to fix things. I hope they are more successful than we have been.