Good (your support for a certain figure does not definite you in totality).

You have posted consistently hateful and racist memes in defense of President Trump. You also once helped me with my car long ago when I really needed it. I have never forgotten. Thank you.

And you, you have posted aggressively untruthful and hateful “Christian” links from discredited sources in defense of President Trump. Over and over. You also have loved my family and been on hand to help within your scope of skilled services. Many times. Thank you.

You. And you: you have made unconscionably unkind and false statements out of context, again and again, in defense of President Trump. You also were decent to me in school long ago when I knew almost nobody and needed a few friendly faces to make things easier. One time, just shifting your body, scooting your chair over enough to let me join in and include me in conversation. I remember these things. Thank you.

You, you way off on the right: you have shared offensive and sexist posts repeatedly. I do not understand. But I can see you love your kids and I hope that love will help you to find a way to pass along character that finds strength in kindness and inclusion. Thank you for loving your own children enthusiastically. That is a good start. Now help pass it along. Thank you.

Hey you. Yeah, you. The one who never voted until this election and with whom I had a rather hilarious and intense argument years ago about how unimportant voting was and how you don’t care about politics. Somewhere in there, you were inspired to swing to the other side and aggressively shotgun out conspiracy theories breathtaking in their disconnect with any sort of reality. Again and again and again, and to invoke the name of Jesus as Trump supporter and defender. You also have struggles and challenges that you have sometimes shared publicly and that is a vulnerable and brave thing to do. I respect that. Thank you.

You, and you. And you. Incredible bakers and auto mechanics, builders, engineers, electricians, attorneys, even teachers, even parents, and EVEN, inexplicably and almost indefensibly, spiritual leaders: I do not understand how you could have supported, and continued to support the ongoing leadership of a man whose principles are fluid and whose moral leadership is the antithesis of strength.

Television coverage of Donald Trump's election in 2016. Four years ago. We watched together, as a family, as this sad event unfolded - yet, and YET: we accepted this happening as the result of a democratic, fair election in which he won. We accepted it then, and the outcome of this election must also be accepted.

I do not understand. I may never.

But I know many, many, most of you are good people.

Good people whose support for this man I do not understand...

but also does not define you in totality.

You are more than the sum of your support for him. And even more than the sum of the oftentimes incendiary and false statements you have blasted out repeatedly.

And I am more than the sum of my one vote. More than the sum of my support for President-Elect Biden.

This is not an empty call for unity because “my side” won. Things are not going to magically get better with a different President. I will disagree with him on plenty, I’m sure. But it will mark a return to a place where we could count on Top-down support for all citizens. Not just the ones who voted for you. And a return, I hope, to good arguing:

Good arguments are based on policy disagreements, not personal attacks. And they are based on mutual respect, an acceptance the role language and words play in our dialogues, and an attempt to find common sources to trust as we discuss and argue and find ways to hold those in power accountable.

We’ve done it before.
We can do it again.
Better.

We don’t have to agree. But we can find better ways to disagree. Again.

That is my hope.

And if all that gets disregarded, AT LEAST remember this:

We are human beings who are imperfect, and we have all committed wrongs.

And we have all committed rights. We have to remember the good things, even the littlest things, that those we care about - and those we don’t - have committed. Our lives interest in ways that we mostly forget. But you never know what gets remembered. What impacts another person. The good things that people with different ideologies - sometimes abhorrent ones - have committed.

We are more than voting blocs or groups of people who have gotten together through some faulty DNA strain or defect of character.

We are all individuals. All people. All humans with shared humanity and the capacity for great good or great evil.

Homo sum humani, nihil a mi alienum puto.

Sometimes that capacity for Great Good comes out in Tiny Little Goods. That’s something we can try to hang onto.

The good things so many of us have received from “the other side” in ways often forgotten.

So, we move ahead to right the wrongs. And remember the rights and the goods. They are both necessary and they are both strengths and they are both things we can do.

Again.