It is Time to Move from the Symptom to the True Sickness of our Country

Below is today's column in the Grand Haven Tribune. 

It is always a little tricky to write a column that you know won’t be published for a couple of days. That’s been particularly true this year, given the pace at which things have changed even within a forty-eight-hour period. But this column, in particular, submitted the day before Election Day and scheduled to be published the day after Election Day, required some deeper pondering than most.

In the end, though, I think that what needs to be said in our common life will remain true no matter who is elected on Tuesday, November 3. Indeed, by the time you read this column, it is very likely we still won’t know who the winner of the election is. I hope that is not the case, I hope the election is decisive and the candidate who loses concedes gracefully. But we all know that a very different set of events could play out.

But here is where I am, after four years of President Trump.

President Trump has not been the problem.

Don’t get me wrong, I have profound disagreements with President’ Trump’s administration. I believe he is unfit for office, that his administration is perhaps the most corrupt in history, and that his rhetoric and the way he has exercised his authority has eroded much of what actually makes this country great.

But he is not the problem. And that means that if he loses this election, we will have a problem. And if he wins, we need to dig even more deeply into the real problems that face this country.

President Trump is a symptom of a deep sickness that is currently infecting much of the world and much of the United States, a sickness not as deadly as the coronavirus, but one that also has dead bodies at its feet. For far too long, we have not dealt with festering issues in our country and Trump’s presidency has been the raising up of all those issues, embodying them in a man who would do anything to get and maintain power, including take all the worst of America into himself.

But, even then, he’s not the problem.

The problem, my fellow citizens, is that we have become a country that seems to thrive on hate. For years politicians have used hatred and fear of the other to stoke the passions of the public and secure power and control. This is as old as the Republic itself.

But hatred seems to have become woven into the very identity of so many of our citizens. This is true in some relatively easy to point out ways—the resurgence of white-supremacy, for example. The epidemic of violence against people of color by law enforcement—and the refusal of a good portion of our society to hear their cries begging for their lives—has been shameful. The scapegoating of immigrants has made those who came here to find a better life sometimes afraid to leave their own home.

This hatred is also evident in the rise in hate crimes against LGBTQ people. In 2018, the last year for which the FBI has data available, there was a 15% increase since 2016 in hate crimes against people due to their sexual orientation. Even more unsettling, there was a 42% increase in hate crimes against people due to their gender identity, whether they were transgender or simply gender non-conforming.

Don’t get me wrong, hatred knows no political ideology. We have certainly an increase in those driven to the edges of both parties, with some of those on the right hating those on the left, calling them communists who are trying to destroy America… and some of those on the left hating those on the right, calling them fascists and traitors to the American dream. And while those claims may be true for segments of each party, they are not representative of the parties as a whole—at least not when it comes to the majority of Americans who claim those parties for their own political identity.

So, there are two things we need to do. First, we need to come together—those on the right and those on the left—and start getting serious about building a better America than the one we have contributed to over these past four years. If President Trump retains power, then we must refuse to give in to his desire to stoke hatred and violence. Since he will not face another election after this one, hopefully leaders in the Republican party would be a little less beholden to him. If Vice-President Biden captures the election, we need to get serious about undoing the damage of these past four years—not only the damage to our nation, but the damage even to the Republican party itself.

We must come together because the first hatred I mentioned, the hatred and violence against people of color, immigrants, LGBTQ Americans, this hatred and violence must be stopped. Opposing this hatred and violence with every ounce of our being must become a bipartisan issue, one in which we can all work together to tell those who would participate in these kinds of hatred and violence that there is no place for this in the America we love.

President Trump has been like a bad cough, an obvious symptom that something is wrong. But no matter who wins the 2020 election, we must stop focusing only on the symptom and start getting to the heart of the sickness which infects our country. If we don’t, I fear America never will be the great country imagined by so many of us. If we don’t, I fear continued decline is inevitable.

The Rev. Dr. Jared C. Cramer, Tribune community columnist, serves as rector of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Grand Haven. Information about his parish can be found at www.sjegh.com.