People

I wish that I could say that the rancor and vitriol of this presidential campaign is coming to an end on election day, but I fear that something larger has happened. This has been a dangerous campaign, which is only a symptom of where we’ve come as Americans.

On the whole, we’ve become an angry lot, suspicious of each other and quick to take offense. We’ve been taught this fury and had our basest instincts preyed upon by those who believe that whipping up our frenzy is in their best interest.

Listening to or reading the news is a look at a fever-pitch and desperate desire for power with competing morals, values and paradigms vying in a deadly war for our minds and hearts. From the presidential candidates’ interviews, it’s sometimes tough for voters to explain their policy positions, but we are memorized in the epithets and name-calling that flare back and forth between them like bombs bursting in air. We have certainly heard the claims that both will destroy the Constitution, that each will bring the end of America as we know it, that we will feel the hot breath of misery upon us if one or the other candidate is elected.

I will not minimize this contest.  It may be one of the most consequential of our lifetimes with candidates facing off with antithetical world views and consequences that may be felt for generations.  I have heard that Trump is a Nazi fascist much like Hitler and that Harris is a left-wing lunatic and that there are enemies within. That is just the smallest sampling of the labeling. Not in my lifetime have I heard any more base things hurled between candidates as now. Each reminds a believing public that the other is a great danger to our nation and the candidate that fosters disdain and hatred.

There are calls for unity in the same breath as there is judgment and acrimony, calls for freedom at the same time free speech is canceled.

The derision is of deep concern, but something else feels even worse. It is not just a presidential candidate on one side or the other that so many disdain, but anyone who votes for them. That’s right. I have a right, nay, a duty to despise you for voting for someone else. You, after all, are voting for the devil himself, and you singlehandedly are ruining this nation.

Through endless news footage and opinion columns, we have stripped the presidential candidates of their humanity, but we have also done the same for their supporters. We learn an old friend is voting for a different candidate than we are, and suddenly we step away from them. We had no idea they were so menacing and unintelligent. Adult children suddenly won’t talk to their parents. Old friends stop calling. A friend sharing your pew is telling everyone that God has anointed a candidate and the Book of Mormon says so.

What a neat trick and a sleight of hand. How totally this divides us, making us into warring tribes. If your candidate is a fascist on the one hand or a lunatic on the other, what does it say about you as a voter? In fact, these candidates are so flawed and hateful, you surely must be too.

Only a racist, homophobic, illiterate, unwashed, militaristic, gun-slinger would vote for Trump. Only a delusionary, America hater, immoral, border destroying, liar would vote for Harris. If we let our hearts and minds build cases against each other like this, then how can our nation stand? A house divided against itself cannot stand—and not only is it politically unwise to turn from each other, it is spiritually demoralizing.

Following Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally that packed a jubilant crowd to the rafters, MSNBC spliced together “archival footage from the 1939 Nazi rally into the broadcast of the rally.”

Trump hater Jonathan Caphart, Washington Post columnist and MSNBC contributor said, “That jamboree happening right now, in that place, is particularly chilling, because in 1939, more than 20,000 supporters of a different fascist leader – Adolf Hitler – packed the Garden for a so-called ‘pro-America rally.’” Such comparisons went on to suggest that those who would vote for Trump were also fascists.

‘By their vote, ye shall know them’ sounds like a new distortion on an old piece of wisdom. To take it farther, ‘by their vote ye shall hate them.’ Please, let us not go there. We don’t want to have our own personal hate list or a disdain list or even list of those we have judged.

We used to like our neighbor before he or she put that obnoxious political ad in their yard.

How can they, we wonder, vote for this or that candidate and be a good person? Why are they choosing to ruin my America?

Why do we get so worked up about not just the presidential candidates, but anyone who would vote for either of them? From where does this mighty swell of anger arise? Many forces are at work, and here are some.

We tell ourselves that our anger is just righteous indignation. Since we feel fairly powerless to impact this sweeping trend of ideas that are reshaping America, it seems like the least we could do is register our ire at the people who are making this happen. We are at a crossroads, not just with this election, but with ideologies that have captured our institutions and our minds. It feels that the only way we can resist this onslaught is to feel it deeply and condemn the world with all the fervor of our soul. Then, at least, we’ve done something. We’ve stood up. We did our little part to save America.

Ironically, however, that leads to a path of resentment against the people around us who differ in any way on the issues. Our “righteous anger” was not so righteous after all. We argue and contend with them, sometimes in reality, but mostly in our own souls. These are hard times, and they have made them harder.

How difficult it is to follow the Lord’s admonition to love one another, while we are dismayed at half of the people of this nation. Can we possibly believe that we are taking the high moral ground by quietly seething about some people’s choice for president, instead of seeing those contrary voters in all their humanity? They are our neighbors, our friends, our family.

One well known political organization maintains a “hate map”, and the groups they add to the map are those which simply differ from their viewpoint. Let us not develop our own personal hate map about the politics of our neighbors.

We can be carefully taught to disdain one another. Anger is not difficult to whip up, because it plays upon our basest instincts. You can come to see anger as a sign of righteous, passionate involvement, instead of the canker of a society that it is. How can a fractured nation accomplish any great thing, including sustain and protect itself and its people?

I received an email a few weeks ago that I found completely refreshing. The author is an admired acquaintance whom I know only through email, but his suggestion was that I run his op-ed, supporting Kamala Harris, on Meridian. He wrote, if you are in agreement with this op-ed, please share as freely as you feel comfortable. If you are not, we certainly remain friends in Christ’s Zion.

Ultimately, we didn’t run his article, nor another that came in from someone else supporting Trump. If we had opened the door on the topic of this election, our inboxes would bulge with eager commentary, and while we talk about issues on Meridian, we don’t talk about candidates. I trusted my friend enough not only to say no to him, but also that he would truly remain my friend. His is an example worth emulating in this rancorous and mean-spirited time.

It is noteworthy that when the Savior visited the Nephites, one of the first things he told them, is that “there shall be no disputations among you, as there have hitherto been.” What’s interesting is what they had been disputing about. It was the mode of baptism and points of doctrine! In other words, the sides of this argument each believed that they were protecting something important and that their anger was righteous. The Lord disabused them of this idea. He said, “For verily, verily I say unto you, he that hath the spirit of contention is not of me, but is of the devil, who is the father of contention” (3 Nephi 11:28,29)

In fact, since the Book of Mormon is both a witness and a warning, it is hard to escape the idea that one of the most basic warnings is against the terrible disunity and breakdown that results from anger. In this book, we see not just one, but two civilizations destroyed by hatred of an enemy. Both stories are pathetic in their rage.

The warring factions of the Jaredites slay millions until only Coriantumr and Shiz were left. Coriantumr finally killed Shiz and their entire nation all but disappeared to history. So, who won? Nobody.

“If ye are not one, ye are not mine,” the Lord tells us, and this is a covenant statement. The Lord’s people are meant to be gathered in unity around the Savior, and ultimately around the throne of God. This doesn’t mean we have to vote the same, but it does mean that we can taste of the Lord’s goodness and have anger lifted from us. It does mean we have been taught better and can choose better and we can rely on the Lord’s strength to help us transform ugly feelings.

The Lord’s Zion is a place of one mind and one heart. He is a gatherer. It is Satan who is the great divider and laughs when we turn against each other.

On election day, someone will win, and half the country may be upset. No matter who the winning candidate is, there is possibility that this could spill over into an anger that continues to divide us. Long-term resentment and division is not good for a nation and it is not good for our own souls. Practice now to be a peacemaker. This does not mean to be passive or ill-informed or just hunker down and wait for a different tomorrow or the Second Coming.

It is anything but true that peacemakers are passive. We know from the Book of Mormon that we must be involved in the public square and governance of our world lest we falter. Yet, peacemakers know that only in living the commandments can their nation be preserved. Only in telling the truth, can a lie lose its power. Only in loving and caring for others can hate dissolve. Any other road for a nation will lead to dissolution.