Last week, with a colleague lying in a hospital bed in critical condition, federal lawmakers from both parties stood side-by-side singing the national anthem and “God Bless America.”
They put differences aside and joined in an annual charity baseball game. Many had been preparing for that game Wednesday morning when a crazed gunman opened fire, injuring five people, including House Majority Whip Steve Scalise.
Amanda Clinton, of Woodbridge, Va., came to the game with a sign: “This Democrat is here to support Congressman Scalise. Get Well Soon, Sir.” She told CNHI’s Kery Murakami she didn’t know much about Scalise, and she acknowledged that she likely didn’t share many of his political positions.
“Just because I disagree with him doesn’t mean I can’t be a compassionate human being,” she said.
How long will it last? How long will the shock of a deranged gunman taking shots at our elected leaders bring moderation to our public discourse?
How long will we put politics aside and treat each other as human beings?
The fact is that for many of us the pause in hostilities never really started. Even as the grief began, many on both sides of the political divide were still spewing venom.
There will always be fanatics at both ends of the spectrum. There will always be those putting forth a message of division and hate.
But we don’t all have to join in.
Members of Congress set an example for the nation this week as they stood on that baseball field — singing together, playing together, even praying together.
We need more moments like that.
We will never agree on all of the issues facing our country. We might agree on almost none of them.
But we can treat each other with respect. We can drop the name-calling and give each other the benefit of the doubt.
We can acknowledge that disagreeing with us does not constitute stupidity. We should not equate intelligence with a particular political position.
Beyond that, we can abandon the no-holds-barred, winner-take-all mentality that seems to dominate modern American political life.
We don’t have to take a scorched-earth approach in our political campaigns. It should be possible for both candidates to emerge at the end of the contest with their reputations intact.
A political commentator in the last few days observed that we had emerged last year from a presidential election featuring two of the most unpopular candidates in American history.
How much of that is a result of the candidates themselves, and how much is a result of the political environment in which we find ourselves today?
Americans of all political persuasions are disappointed with our current situation.
President Donald Trump finds himself with a record-low approval rating at this stage of his administration, but how much different would it have been if Hillary Clinton had won the election? Would Benghazi or the email fiasco have taken the place of the scandals of today?
Is this the new normal? Can we find our way past it?