These are perilous times in America. There’s no way to sugarcoat it — our polarization is deep and getting deeper. The murder of Charlie Kirk marked a turning point. Many on the right are through trying to persuade the left; they think “that’s what Charlie tried to do, look what happened.”
Still, we should remember that we have been through much worse. Thomas Paine described the American Revolution as “the times that try men’s souls.” Slavery tore this country apart, not just physically during the four bloody years of the Civil War, but by eroding the bonds of trust and mutual friendship Americans should have for each other. And I lived through the ’60s and the ’70s when riots, bombings, and assassinations were an all-too-frequent occurrence.
POLITICAL VIOLENCE ON THE RISE IN THE US: A TIMELINE OF KEY INCIDENTS
We made it through those times, and we can make it through these as well. We just need to remember that there is much more that unites us than divides us. In his first inaugural address, President Abraham Lincoln knew the country was careening toward war. He tried desperately to stop it, reminding all his fellow citizens that “we are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection.” At his second inaugural, even as warring armies were in the field fighting against each other, Lincoln was planning for the peace ahead. He saw a future “with malice toward none” and “with charity for all” that would lead to a “just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”
As difficult as that time was, there is a challenge today that Lincoln did not have to face. While the country dealt with many pressing cultural and political issues, the most pressing was on the battlefield. There were armies led by generals, who answered to political leadership. Ultimately, the fighting stopped when those generals and political leaders chose to stop it. We don’t have that. The belligerents in our time are not part of an army, but individuals acting on their own. There is no “us” and no “them”; there are no institutions on the right or left that can sign a peace treaty and end the fighting the way the Union and Confederacy did.
The good news is that there is still hope. We, each of us, have the power to push the country in the right direction. I implore you to be a thermostat, not a thermometer. A thermometer shows you what the temperature is; if things are running hot, it will show everyone how hot things are. A thermostat, in contrast, affects the temperature; if things are running hot, you can use a thermostat to turn down the temperature to where it is more comfortable. All of us, for the good of the country, should be trying to turn down the temperature. Remember that there is a lot more that unites us than divides us. Presume good faith on the part of those with whom you disagree, and try to disagree agreeably. Focus on ideas, not people. Ideas can be wrong or evil, but a person is your fellow human, formed in the image of God and a fellow American.
While everyone can do those things, those on the left and right have special ways they can help cool the boiling cauldron of American politics. My friends on the left can stop trying to convince themselves that political violence is a right-wing phenomenon. They do this mostly by defining nearly all race-based and antisemitic violence as coming from the right, when, in reality, racism and antisemitism, as well as violence motivated by those hatreds, exist on both sides of our left/right divide (or, more accurately, exist outside of our left/right divide).
We, on the right, also need to avoid painting everyone who opposes us with the same broad brush. The video you saw on Facebook of a professor at a college you have never heard of espousing leftist nonsense and encouraging violence does not necessarily represent the views of your neighbor who supports higher taxes to fund a larger social safety net (as misguided as those views might be). The left is not a monolithic “they” any more than the right is. “They” did not kill Charlie Kirk; a young man who went seriously, tragically astray did.
TRUMP CALLS CARBON FOOTPRINT A ‘HOAX’ IN UN ADDRESS CRITICIZING GREEN POLICIES
It would be ideal if those who led our largest and most important institutions — in politics, big business, media, and universities — would pursue this course of thermostatic control. But that would require showing a degree of statesmanship and leadership that, as a general matter, has been lacking at those places for years, if not decades.
Let’s hope they rise to the occasion and allow the better angels of their nature to prevail. But even if they let us down, each of us can pick up the mantle by trying to turn down the temperature in our everyday interactions. The country is counting on us.
Dr. Ben Carson is the founder and chairman of the American Cornerstone Institute.
