5:00PM
At 1AM last night (or early this morning), President Trump sent out multiple tweets, calling many of his opponents different unflattering and attacking names, including some racial slurs. He was tweeting in response to a video ad that a group called the Lincoln Project created and ran, which focused on how many people have died as a result of COVID-19, how many people have lost jobs, and how many people seem hopeless, and pointed the blame at Trump.
We are in the midst of a pandemic, a war against a virus, and I see so much money, time, and attention being spent on attacking each other—blaming each other, denigrating each other, and overall discarding each other. While at war with a virus, I do not believe we should be at war with each other.
I am calling for a political ceasefire.
I believe we should pause our negative attacks on each other, whether in the form of television ads or side comments, tweets or editorials, and commit to working with each other to resolve this global conflict. We stop attacking politicians or media outlets, we stop attacking foreign countries, we stop attacking people of different races or genders, and we work together to solve a problem the world has never seen.
Never before has the world seen such a global challenge—the virus is killing people all around the globe and robbing us of human touch and closeness; it is stopping employment and therefore income, robbing so many of the means to afford the means to provide for their lives; it is challenging the foundations of global society, robbing us of much of the trust and faith that we may have had left in our societies.
I say it is time for us to lay down our arms against each other, to recognize that we are on the same team, and to push forward together. We may not like each other, we may not get along, we may not agree with each other’s choices, but we must work together if we are to win against this virus.
When an enemy combatant wants to win, one of the main strategies is to sow division and chaos within the opponent. By doing this, the opponent breaks down in cohesion and becomes demoralized.
The way to fight is to discard the internal fights and to commit to working together. To see our common humanity. To recognize that we are in this together, whether we want to be or not.
I believe in us. I believe in our ability to bridge our divides to put our best effort forward. I believe we can do this. Let’s do this.
5:10PM
