Just to be clear, I don’t do politics. Frankly, I don’t understand most of it. So this post is not intended to change your position or how you vote, but it is intended to bring the issue to the forefront. From the people I talk to, very few are excited about the choice facing us as a country. For people from other countries, it has become a thing of entertainment. How did it really come to this?
Simply said, the two candidates for president are the epitome of the extremes. They are caricatures of the political parties. If you are on the other side, it is almost impossible to connect with anything regarding the other. In fact, they might just seem like the one that will bring our country crumbling down to nothing. I know right?!
However, if we do a little cultural self-reflection, we can easily see how each candidate is either the embodiment of who we are or the representation of everything we don’t want to be. They are, I believe, a mirror for our nation.
On the one hand, there represents the ignorance that is driven by social media, the fear of change, and the dynamic on-stage personality that is often viewed as our cultural social ideal. On the other hand, there represents the corruption and dysfunction of the immoral institution, politics as business, and hidden agendas. Whichever way you look at it, they are two sides of the same coin. They are both responses of self-preservation and self-exaltation to the need to model true humanity regarding the issues facing us. In other words, the nation’s desire for integrity and honor in addressing issues with compassion and understanding is only met with a political soap opera.
This self-reflection will probably not change how you vote. At the end of the day, there are really only two options. But this is the problem.
These two options did not spring up over night. The temperature of our nation has changed over time. We have perpetuated these two extremes: succeed at the cost of everybody; it is not as much about what you do but what you say. We are becoming culturally unshockable. Nothing is new to us. We accept dishonesty without repercussion, manipulation without questions, words without action. We are a social media generation. Our two presidential candidates should not be surprising to us. We have created this.
Here is the second problem. We believe we are stuck with only two options and so we perpetuate what socially and culturally works. In business, politics, and church we are afraid to get outside the box because it doesn’t work. What works is to play the game enough for success. So we continue to walk down the path not knowing where it is eventually taking us.
And in this way, the political climate has become the mirror for us. It is true; we don’t like what we see in them. But really, we should not like what we see in ourselves. We are avoiding seeing reality by accepting the extremes. For example, either it is an issue with the police or with the black community. Either we deport people and create walls or we let everyone to come to the U.S.A. Obviously, these issues are much more complex. There is often a third option. And I believe this is what our nation is asking for regarding the presidential race. But this will not start with someone magically showing up. This will start with us culturally taking a hard look in the mirror.
The third option is the model in responding to the issues facing us. It speaks of true humanity, of integrity, of grace, of truth, of change, and of justice. But in order to see this, we must be willing to stop walking down the same path. We have to be open to something different.
Amen!!!!