We Have to Love Our Country More Than Our Right to Be Offended | Opinion

America has always been a nation of sharp divides and passionate politics. When you live in a country as large and diverse as ours, bright dividing political lines are inevitable. Your leadership matters. The stakes are always high. But we as a nation have been playing a very dangerous game for a long time, and it almost led to the assassination of a leading presidential candidate. That game is dehumanization.

At some point, our political debates were no longer about issues, policies and competing visions for the country. They became exercises in demonization. The politics of personal destruction went from being a rarity to commonplace. Why would anyone be surprised at an attempt on former President Trump’s life when he’s been compared to Hitler and demonized as a “threat to democracy” for nearly a decade? Think about it. Trump and his supporters have been attacked as threats to the very fabric of our nation. It was only a matter of time before someone believed that rhetoric.

We have lost the art of being able to disagree without demonizing one another. Our political default is to go into the gutter. And political leaders on both sides of the aisle have been perpetrators and victims of it. When you call your political opponent Hitler or accuse someone of committing genocide (as some on the far Left do with the tasteless “Genocide Joe” attack on President Biden), you go down a road that eventually only leads to one outcome.

We cannot allow political differences, even passionate ones, to strip away our sense of humanity. When politics matters more than the people, you’ve lost the point. Politics is not supposed to be about the pursuit of power for power’s sake. It should be about serving the people, and asking for power because you believe that your vision is in the best interest of the country.

By Divine Providence, America averted disaster yesterday. This nation was centimeters away from completely falling apart. Had the attempt on former President Trump’s life been successful, it would’ve served for millions of people—rightly or wrongly—as an unmistakable data point that the battle at the ballot box was no longer sufficient. And then what? No matter who you support in this election, does any of us really want to see a country where half of its citizens lose faith in this entire experiment? Where would we go from there?

My friend and political commentator Kira Davis often says that it’s hard for the country to unite because “nobody wants to give up their right to be offended.” The Right has plenty of examples of hateful rhetoric directed towards them by the Left and vice versa. But at some point we all have to ask ourselves, what do we love more—this country or our right to be offended?

Everyone shares some of the blame in this. Democrats, Republicans, liberals, conservatives, progressives, the media, everyone. We as a collective have forgotten that people matter more than politics. Donald Trump is not just a billionaire or the former president. He’s a human being, with a wife and a family.

Dehumanization is so dangerous because it serves as a conscience blocker. It allows people to do heinous things without remorse because the volume of their ideology is so loud that it drowns out the conviction of the still, small voice inside of you. When you dehumanize people, this is the natural outcome.

After 9/11, this country came together. We remembered that what unites us is far more important than what divides us. And that lasted, for a little while. Eventually those feelings went away and we stopped looking at each other as fellow Americans. We started looking at each other as mortal enemies again. The assassination attempt on former President Trump is another incident that has shaken the nation. People are talking once again about the need to unify and turn the temperature down. Do we mean it? Or will this feeling also fade away as time goes on?

As a proud American who is also the descendent of slaves, I often say that we may have come here on different ships, but we are all now in the same boat. The success or failure of this American experiment will have a profound impact on all of our lives. We have another chance to get it right. Do it before it’s too late. Disagree passionately, but stop the dehumanization.

Darvio Morrow is CEO of the FCB Radio Network and co-host of The Outlaws Radio Show.

The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.