I suppose it was inevitable really . . . that there would be a shooting . . . that a candidate for political office would be targeted. With hate speech and intolerance filling our air waves and internet choices, someone was going to snap. This weekend’s assassination attempt on former President Donald’s Trump’s life, shocked the nation.

But, I’m not so sure it was a surprise he was attacked, nor would it have been a surprise had President Biden been attacked in a different setting. Hate speech has only grown in the last decade. Images of violence spew out of politicians’ mouths, and are repeated on Twitter type accounts.

For the good of our nation, our communities and ourselves, we have to stop the hate. We have to stop the way we have been treating each other. We have to change the way we talk to each other and about each other. We have to stop assuming that anyone who disagrees with us politically or on social issues is our enemy. We have to start listening to each other and hearing why people believe and feel as they do.

I was eating in a Mexican Restaurant one day where there was neither internet service nor an English news station. I could not understand a word on the TV. Then, I realized what a gift it was. For the next hour or so I would be unable to hear or see any negative news coming from Washington. I would be free, if only temporarily, from the ongoing cycle of scandal, intrigue, and “awfulizing” being broadcast. I would be able to rest from the 24-hour news cycle that tells me everything wrong with the world and (depending on which station I tuned into) whose fault it is. For the next hour and a half, eating with my family, I would be free of it all.

But, I am an avid news junkie. I would soon be going back into the spewing, the hating – reading angry tweets and angry responses. A place where there is no middle ground. In the midst of Saturday’s shooting, in the trauma and tragedy of it, may there be honest reflection on the why of the shooting.

How did we get to this place? How can we change the way we do politics? Do we always have to disparage the person who opposes us? Can there be reason and honest dialogue about what is best for the country? Does whatever party that is in power, have to flagrantly bypass honest dialogue with the other side? Does the party not in power have to demonize the party in power? Can we start looking for the best and not the worst in each other? Can we all tone down the conversation, take a deep breath and use our minds and our hearts the way God intended? Can we get back to loving our neighbor as ourselves, even in our politics?

“And now faith, hope, and love remain, these three, and the greatest of these is love.” I Corinthians 13:13


*A version of this post was previously published June 14, 2017 as “We Have to Stop the Hate”