I mentioned this in passing in my last entry. It was in relation to Joe Biden and his empathy. He has been a mourner before. He mourned the death of his first wife and daughter. He mourned the death of his son. He seems to be able to connect to others that have also suffered loss. This entry isn’t about him. It’s about us. We are all mourning.
What exactly does this mean? Not all of us have lost a family member or friend in the pandemic. Not all of us have lost a job or business. Some of us have merely been inconvienced. So, what is this all about? What losses are we talking about? Is this just about Donald Trump?
Believe it or not, this isn’t about him. At least it’s not about him directly. Those of us that have been paying attention know who he is and have known it for decades. We either voted accordingly or chose to overlook it. One of the tragedies we are mourning is the knowledge that some voted for him specifically because of who and what he is.
The mourning is not for him. He is who he is. The world is full of horrible people. I’m sure if you look hard enough you can find people roaming free that are more horrible than him. Obviously, there all kinds of people behind bars that are infinitely more horrible, We don’t give them a second thought because they aren’t in our daily lives.
One of the charges of a president is to create a tone for the country and civil discourse. We can make people better and we can make people worse. We are seeing people at their worst. That’s all of us. Whether you cheer when he insults others, laugh at the insult, laugh at him, or respond in anger we are all made worse.
We mourn when we peruse social media and connect with people we knew when we were younger. We mourn because we discover they aren’t the person we thought they were. We mourn because they don’t seem to share the same values that we do. We mourn because we remember a time when we got along, had fun, and didn’t seem to argue all the time.
You’ll notice one thing. I haven’t said which side is right and which side is wrong. That’s what makes the description of the mourning so difficult. Each side feels it and believes the other side has lost their mind. We just know it’s a divide that seems impossible to breech. We’re mourning the loss of decency, civility, a sense of togtherness, and a patriotism we all could get behind.
We are mourning the absence of facts, the absence of perspective, and the absence of common sense. More than anything, we are mourning the fact that we seem more interconnected now than at any other time and yet we seem more isolated now than at any other time.
I think what is most depressing is that many of us have failed to distinguish between people that we know to be good people that we simply disagree with and truly horrible people. They’ve somehow all become horrible. This is why we are mourning.
halloffameindex 