What would true unity require?

In the days following the news that Joe Biden had won the 2020 U.S. Presidential election, I found myself thinking a lot about how liberals could help heal the massive polarization and distrust in the country. What would it look like to actually unite the country right now? What would it take to make good on that promise?

To roughly half of our fellow citizens, a Biden presidency is scary, and they are going to look at all this "unite" language with eye rolls and suspicion.

I think they're right to be skeptical.

We liberals are good at including some kinds of diversity under our umbrella of care. We affirm that Black lives matter, LGBTQ lives matter, immigrant lives matter.

But do conservative lives matter? Do the lives of people who voted for Donald Trump matter? Are they part of the diversity that we say we are committed to in this country?

Or are those millions of people just "wrong," making us justified in ignoring, shaming, and condescending to them?

I can't tell you how times I've heard my fellow liberals say things like, "Yeah, I'm all for tolerance and inclusion, but not when it comes to bigots and white supremacists." In a matter of seconds, they paint half of the country with a God-awful stereotype, and use it to justify not caring, not listening, not even wanting to know their neighbor.

How is that different from someone painting all Black people as lazy or stupid or criminal, and writing off any social obligation to them? To me, it's the same dynamic.

Do we really think that all Trump supporters are the same? That we know who they are or what they most deeply care about because of the sign on their lawn or the way that they voted?

Do we think they accurately know and represent us, when they call us liberal snowflakes?

No, of course not. Because we -- all of us -- are much more complex than that.

As long as we are trapped in this us vs. them thinking, though, we won't see that complexity in the “other.” And we most certainly won't do the work of actually uniting this country.

What do you think it would take right now for your conservative and Trump-supporting friends and neighbors to trust liberals right now? What would it take for them to trust a Biden presidency? What would it take for them to trust you?

My guess is that it's not much different from what you wish they'd done these past four years. For me, it includes:

Be curious. Slow down. Listen to what I'm actually saying. Trust that I'm not an idiot, or an enemy. Try to understand what's driving me. Be open to learning something new that you may have been blind to. Consider that I may actually have a perspective to offer you that is important. Take deep breaths. Be courageous in your honesty about where you're coming from, and why it really matters to you. Trust that I will also listen and not hurt or condemn you. Trust that I really do believe that we are all in this together. That we are capable of having hard conversations. That we can actually co-exist in this world without having to wipe each other out.

For the most part, this is not the nature of the conversations that have been happening -- or at least not the conversations that are widely publicized and shared. But they are possible.

We have a chance to be leaders here. To stand for what we say we stand for by living our commitment to true diversity and inclusion.

It is messy, but it is possible. And I believe it is the only approach that is going to get us to the kind of future we truly want.