Making America Good Again: 4 Post-Election Pathways for Bettering Ourselves and Our Country

Politics shouldn't be more important than family. Biba Kayewich

“I can’t wait until this election is over” has been a common refrain from family and friends these last couple of weeks.

We’d all grown tired of the heated rhetoric, the character assassinations, the charges and countercharges, many of them lacking substance, that blistered the airwaves and enflamed social media. Now that we have elected a new president, half the country is cheering and celebrating a victory while the other half is suffering the gloom and doom of defeat.

And the odds are high that we will remain, at least for the foreseeable future, a deeply and dangerously divided people.

During their campaigns, the candidates for high office promised to bring us together again, but the truth is they lack the power to do so. No presidential decree or executive order can mend our badly frayed national fabric.

Only we the people possess that power, and right now seems the ideal time to undertake that job of patchwork and repair. We can begin by taking a sledgehammer to some idols.

Rejecting False Gods

This post-election season invites us to step back and examine our beliefs about political issues and their place in our lives. Over the past 50 years or so, and especially with the advent of the internet, more and more Americans seem possessed by politics. Everything from science to the arts now bears the stamp—some might say the heel of a boot—of this obsession.

The peril here, that politics becomes a god, has in fact already occurred. Many Americans now shape causes and political beliefs into religious creeds, creating a jealous Moloch demanding the sacrifice of all who deny its righteousness. Our sister voted for someone we don’t like? Banish her and her family from the Thanksgiving festivities. An old friend worked for the opposite side’s campaign? Cancel that person on social media and block his phone number. In earlier ages, heretics were burned at the stake. Today, we declare them untouchables and send them into exile.

And in doing so, we shrivel our souls.

If you kill a relationship with your parents solely because of a difference in politics, what separates you from the son who denounced his father to the authorities for making disparaging remarks about Hitler, Stalin, or Mao? If you end all contact with a friend who voted for a candidate you despise, how does that forward the cause of free speech and the differences of opinion that are a hallmark of our republic? If you truly cherish someone, are you really willing to banish them from your life for their views on climate change or the war between Israel and Hamas?

Extremists excepted—such as an advocate of terrorism, or an incontrovertible or psychopathic political bigot—politics isn’t worth the sacrifice of family and friends. Discuss, debate if you will, the differences between you, or simply agree to disagree, but don’t demonize each other. That stiff-necked act of smug pride and priggish superiority only makes you smaller.

Moses melted down the golden calf and ground that idol into powder. Let’s do the same to the idol of politics.

Neighbors Helping Neighbors

Because I lived for more than 30 years in and around Asheville, North Carolina, I’ve closely followed the news about the horrible destruction Hurricane Helene inflicted on those mountains and their people. Once internet and electrical services were restored, I also contacted a number of family members and friends living there. Most came through unscathed, with only fallen trees on cars and homes, though one old friend nearly drowned, and lost her home and everything she owned to the floodwaters.

From within that region and from around our country came thousands of volunteers and millions of dollars in donations and supplies to help the afflicted. Not once did I read a report of a hungry man being asked “Who are you voting for?” before receiving food. Not once did I hear of a mother with children in need of shelter being asked “Are you for Harris or Trump?” before being given a bed and a roof over her head.

The storm killed people and left a wake of destruction that will take years to repair, but the recovery effort provides us with a shining example of neighbor helping neighbor. Common humanity won against ideology, hands down.

The lesson is clear: Put people over politics.

Accountability

In 1787, Maryland delegate James McHenry wrote that when the Constitutional Convention concluded, “a lady asked Dr. Franklin Well Doctor what have we got a republic or a monarchy—A republic replied the Doctor if you can keep it.”

Franklin’s short reply contains a hidden message: The survival of a republic depends on the independence and personal accountability of its citizens.

During the past few months, as in other election seasons, the candidates have promised that if elected, they will remedy the hot-topic troubles of the day—in this case, inflation, illegal immigration, rising crime rates, and declining schools. Ironically, the problems they vow to fix through governance were born and bred by government itself.

In this post-election season, let’s turn away from our long-time habit of looking to a paternalistic government for help and solutions. Americans possess a proud do-it-ourself heritage of overcoming obstacles, and that spirit, though diminished, lives on today. In North Carolina, for example, when Helene washed away a 2.7-mile stretch of road between Bat Cave and Chimney Rock, the state’s Department of Transportation and the Army Corps of Engineers promised to send surveyors to inspect the damage. Rough estimates were that it would require months of work to reopen the road. Instead, a group of West Virginia coal miners, volunteers to a man, used their heavy equipment and, in less than a week, made the road passable for traffic.

When we look to politicians and bureaucrats to bail us out or solve all our problems, we’re just handing them more power. Instead, let’s follow the example of our forefathers, take responsibility for ourselves and our actions, and act accordingly.

Civic Charity

In his 2021 article “Founding Fathers Message on Unity and Civic Charity Is More Relevant Than Ever,” then-president of the Federal Bar Association W. West Allen wrote:

“Thomas Jefferson taught us during his days of great political division that we must ‘unite with one heart and one mind [and] restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty, and even life itself, are but dreary things.’ He referred to this as ‘social love.’ George Washington, in his capacity as president of the Constitutional Convention, called it the ‘spirit of amity.’ It is civic charity.”

Writer and law professor Amy Chua is the author of “Political Tribes: Group Instinct and the Fate of Nations.” In an address at Brigham Young University, Chua spoke to our country’s bitter divisions, noting that “we all need to be much more protective of Americans’ special national identity, and this is a lesson that both the left and right need to take to heart.”

In short, Jefferson, Washington, West, and Chua are all advocating the ethic of reciprocity found in the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Topple the idols of ideology and the obsession with politics, take command of our own lives as much as possible, practice that rule, and we will restore civic charity to our nation.