Making Home Work
On the morning of Nov. 6, we still didn't know who our president would be. People were staging protests, vote totals were rising and falling and tens of millions of people were frantically refreshing online news sites every few minutes to see if their guy was on top.
After the ugliest election I can remember, things were still uncertain and many people were behaving badly.
It was sad. It was weird. It was unnecessary.
I cared passionately about who would win, but I was deeply alarmed at how nasty things were. Our country is famous for our peaceful election process. Why were we willing to throw that long and admirable history out the window? Whenever we see violent behavior, we should call it out. We should reject it even if it comes from our own side.
I'm not innocent of nasty thoughts and speech about the election, but I'm working on canning the bad attitude. It serves nothing and diminishes me, because I think most forms of anger are toxic. Most importantly, I'm working on the anger because I still refuse to think that people who voted differently than I did are monsters.
There are no monsters here. There are just people who think differently. Sorry Democrats, Republicans are not ignorant yahoos who can't reason enough to understand that government can do good things for the people. Sorry Republicans, Democrats do not want to turn this country into a communist dystopia that controls every aspect of our lives.
We live in a small, peaceful county filled with hard-working people who live to take care of their families. Approximately one-third of these people voted for Biden. Let that sink in. That's a lot of people. I'm assuming that most folks reading this are Republicans, so I ask you: Are you prepared to spend the next four years thinking that one-third of your neighbors and co-workers and quite possibly, family members, are depraved communistic demon spawn? To the Democrats reading this: Are you really prepared to think that two-thirds of the people in Elkhart County are low-IQ misogynistic racists who can't handle change of any kind?
For those of you who think a person who writes a column about home life has no business writing about politics, I say it's hard to make home work when you are surrounded by angry people occupying emotional silos because of representatives in Washington who can't possibly care about us as individuals. Politics is very important, obviously, but how we treat each other daily has a bigger impact on our lives in and out of the home. We vote for strangers. We live with friends, family and neighbors. Which group should take up more emotional space?
You know what I blame it on? (I assume you care because you've read this far.) Social media. I swear, I think comment sections on these platforms are changing people's brains, and not for the better. If you go to Facebook comments section of any local TV station, you'll quickly become discouraged about humanity. So if you are spending a lot of time arguing with strangers on Facebook or Twitter, put down the phone and talk to people around you. Actual friends and family, not angry strangers, who you'll never meet, but who have become weirdly important to you because of the way social media is set up, which is to make your brain want another hit of comments as frequently as possible.
We've been enjoying some pretty nice weather since the election. It's a perfect time to take walks and chat outside with neighbors. It's a perfect time to see the people we do actually know with loving eyes. It's a perfect time to move on.
See you next week.
If you'd like to share your own home memories or tips (or recipes), send ideas to tkwolford@aol.com. Or you can write me via traditional mail at The Farmer's Exchange, P.O. Box 45, New Paris, IN 46553.