At the End of the Day, Americans need to Decide Whether they love their Country more than they hate each Other

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

I was reading an article in The New York Times this morning, describing a time when America felt just as divided as it does now. It was the 1920s, and race politics, risks of authoritarianism, angry division between the left and the right — all of these issues were coming to a boil, and they were risking tearing the country apart.

The NYT article then described a philanthropic movement that helped to bring America back together and resolve some of these tensions.

I want to go another way. While philanthropy may become the enabler of a better, more unified America, we need to start with some very difficult choices that Americans must make.

The first, and hardest choice we need to make is the one I referenced in the title for this post — do we love our country more than we hate those whose politics differ from our own?

Make no mistake — these days, the right hates the left, and the left hates the right.

My wife and I had a drink with her brother this weekend. He is a very right-wing Trump supporter who would move heaven and earth to help his friends. In many ways, he’s a good guy. But he hates — with a fiery passion — those on the left. He rants against them…