I have been sitting with my thoughts all day, trying to process how our country has gotten to where we are today. Things are happening that, not so long ago, would have been considered unacceptable. And I keep wondering: When did the unthinkable become normal?
Consider the recent attack ad targeting Ohio gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton. Her opponent’s campaign issued an ad featuring her estranged mother disputing Acton’s account of childhood abuse, then committed millions of dollars to promote it. Think about that for a moment. Whatever your politics, is this really where we are? Using someone’s childhood trauma to win an election? Have we lost sight of any sense of decency?
I know we have real disagreements in this country. Another one of them is Immigration. But enforcing our laws and treating people humanely are not mutually exclusive. Due process matters and so does accountability. When there are serious questions about how people are treated by those acting in our name, in both the political process and policy execution, shouldn’t we want answers and accountability, regardless of our politics?
I remember a time when there were lines you didn’t cross. Watergate led to Nixon’s resignation. Clinton was impeached. Robert Menendez’s actions landed him in federal prison. These were very different situations, but there was an expectation that how you behaved mattered. That there were consequences when you went too far.
Today, it feels like those lines have all but disappeared.
This change didn’t happen overnight. It has been a slow, steady drip that has become a broken dam. An insurrection. The persistent lie that the 2020 election was stolen. Attacks on judges, journalists, and political opponents. One shocking headline after another, with barely enough time to process one before the next arrives.
We’ve become exhausted by it. Maybe that’s the point. When the news cycle never stops, when every day brings something else that would once have been unthinkable, it’s easy to become numb. To shake our heads, feel outraged for a moment, to feel powerless and to then, just move on.
What concerns me most is how easily we seem to excuse and even defend behavior that would once have brought condemnation. When did winning become more important than how we win? When did loyalty to a political party become more important than doing what we know is right?
I refuse to believe that most Americans — regardless of party — want this. We may disagree about taxes, health care, immigration, or the role of government. Those are legitimate differences that deserve rigorous discourse. But surely, we can agree on some basic things. People deserve dignity and due process. Our leaders should be held accountable. And telling the truth shouldn’t depend on which political party benefits.
So how do we find our way back?
It has to start with us. We need to be willing to take off our political party jerseys to hold our politicians accountable to a higher standard. Decency, honesty and respecting the basic humanity of the other side must be the bare minimum we expect from our leaders.
That standard is not unattainable. During the 2017 Alabama Senate race, it was revealed that candidate Roy Moore had credible allegations of sexual misconduct and assault levied against him, including by victims who were minors at the time of the incidents. Multiple senior members of his party stepped up, calling for him to drop out of the race. He refused. Instead, Alabama voters held their leaders to that higher standard, and Moore lost the race a few weeks later. That is the power that “We the People” all hold.
READ: Some Conservative Christians Are Now Arguing Empathy Is a Sin
On November 3, we once again have an opportunity to make our voices heard. I hope we use it to say that enough is enough. Finding our way back will take time, honesty and a willingness to work together, even when it’s hard. And rest assured, it will be.
I still believe we can do that. I have to believe that there are decent people on all sides who look at what is happening and feel that something has gone terribly wrong.
I think about the country we are leaving for our children and grandchildren. I want our children and their children to inherit a country that stands for something, where people can disagree without losing sight of our shared humanity, and where doing the right thing still matters.
I hope we can find our way back to a place where we don’t have to agree on everything to agree on what matters most.
Basic decency should never have been a partisan issue. It’s time we started acting like it.
