We don’t need a presidential election year to remind ourselves how difficult it sometimes is for neighbors to be neighborly. Yet, here we are. It’s 2024. And it’s a presidential election year.
The messaging has started, and it’s only going to get louder and louder between now and Nov. 5. We can’t escape it: It’s being carried via podcast, talk radio, cable TV and streaming services into our EarPods, dinner-time, cul-de-sac and over-the-fence conversations.
Everything is set to remind us how different we are from each other. You will be told countless times between now and the election how your views don’t matter. How your facts aren’t true facts. How the world as you know it will end if the one issue you care most about isn’t strengthened, protected or reversed. Or, who knows, you might be the one doing the messaging.
Of course, we are all entitled to our opinions, and we live in a country where it is a fundamental right to share those opinions with those willing to listen. That is as it should be.
But those opinions aren’t the only things that matter. And, thankfully, we are in the midst of what will be an extended July 4th holiday weekend for most people, which is the best shot we have at remembering how to be civil to each other. And how beautiful that result can be.
It’s a time for a pause in the messaging, and the most optimistic among us can hope that this weekend’s conversations will center more around barbeque, wacky weather and NCAA football than they do around abortion, immigration policy and last week’s presidential debate. If enough of our time this holiday weekend is spent on such seemingly not-so-important topics, we just might be reminded why there’s more to life than making sure your voice always has to be the loudest one in the room. And, if that happens, you will have done your part to help lower the temperature for the rest of this election season.
Of course, none of that will happen arbitrarily.
Thankfully, many of us live in communities that are helping us find ways to get together and celebrate the day when, nearly 250 years ago, we declared ourselves free from England’s colonial rule. If that's not an option, every one of us can find time in our neighborhoods or around our farms for even smaller, more intimate, gatherings that are no less important.
While as a country we have been and still are far from perfect, we can find a way this holiday weekend to celebrate all the things that bring us together. And the progress we’ve made. That would make this weekend a win for everybody — regardless of your stance on any hot-button issues.
EDITORIALS represent the opinion of Enterprise Media Group. Contact Publisher Chris Rhoades at crhoades@enterprisepub.com or Executive Editor Kevin Bumgarner at editor@enterprisepub.com. They can be reached at (402) 426-2121.
