Meet Me In the Middle: A Runoff Reflection

(Photo credits to CBS)

Today’s the last day of a long, long election. Soon we’ll find out whose narrow margin will propel them to the Senate and shape the future of our democracy. We have two camps that split our state almost down the middle with two visions, two approaches, two core bases. Just two opposites, even though Georgia isn’t a red state or a blue state, it’s made of ten million people who want to be safe and healthy, who want the freedom to live their lives on their own terms, who want a secure future for their families, who want to be seen and to matter. 

And y’all we are hurting. This last year was brutal. Everyone has lost so much - churches and football games and community gatherings, school or college experiences, internships, vacations, jobs and income and financial security, maybe your own health, maybe even a loved one. We’ve given up so much and sometimes it can feel hopeless, like what were these sacrifices even for when it feels like nothing is getting better? Looking ahead at the future, how could we not be touched by fear and sadness?

I watched Donald Trump’s speech at the Dalton rally last night. A lot was said but two things stood out to me. The first was that Trump is entertaining, that he brings this brash energy and confidence and irreverent humor to the stage that is ultimately soothing, a balm against the uncertainty and pain of the world. He’s a larger than life figure that offers up this promise that if you align yourself with him, everything is alright. I can see how going to a rally, gathering in a crowd that shares your values, feeling the electric collective energy, a magic similar to concerts or Georgia football games, can be enormously uplifting.

The second is that we all want boogeymen. We all want to point to a person or a thing that represents the worst of society, an easy target that we can blame our unease and difficulties and disappointments on. Last night, it was China and the Chinese virus and socialism and radical liberals and it was the Green New Deal and defunding the police and Stacey Abrams. In other circles, the boogeymen are angry rural Americans, MAGA hat-wearers, anti-maskers, anti-vaxxers, and Trump himself of course. We all want so desperately to point to someone else as the cause of our misery or the decline of our country, but this robs us of our ability to see each other.

I’m a woman with a lot of ambition, so I used to take it personally when people yelled “Lock Her Up” to Hillary Clinton. I used to take it personally when people wanted to “round up and deport the illegals”, as if immigrants and their descendants had to prove that we were worthy of the American dream. I used to get told “I don’t think you’re going to hell” because I’m not Christian but surprisingly still a good person, a back-handed compliment given with the best of intentions. In some ways, I am that “radical liberal from San Francisco” that the Loeffler ads warn us about - lil ol five foot tall me who grew up on cornbread and country music, who bleeds red and black for the dawgs, who lives out southern hospitality as a core value?

I used to think fear came from not knowing - that if we understood someone else, truly deeply understood their motivations and intentions and worldviews and hopes and dreams, we’d find things to love and we wouldn’t be so afraid. But now I see that sometimes it’s just easier to hold onto our boogeymen and the comfort of believing that our way is the only right one, ready to push out anyone who doesn’t fall in line. 

I want nothing more than to preach a message of unity, that no matter the results of today’s election, we will be alright if we come together. I wish I believed that. But my whole life, it’s felt like I’ve been willing to make amends with people who wouldn't even give me a chance. And I'm not the only person of color who has gone out of their way to connect with white people, not the only woman who has tried to understand men without the gesture being reciprocated. 

I’ll watch a Trump speech and look for goodness, I’ll try to understand the pain of a rural America that’s felt left behind. I’ll tell my bay area friends that Georgia is a really special place, that there are so many good people even if I don’t agree with them on social and political issues. I’ve listened to anti-abortion concerns and have tried to find common ground (there’s evidence that long acting reversible contraception prevents abortions! could we agree on improving access to IUDs?). I see past the extremists to appreciate the noble and kind Christians who serve their communities selflessly. I respect that conservatives would rather take care of their local community on their own without the overreach of the federal government. I’ve spent time and energy and heart looking for this. But over the years, how many people across the aisle have told me that they’re glad my family immigrated and ended up in Rome Georgia? That I belong to this state just as much as they do? If Ossoff and Warnock win, will conservatives do the same soul searching that liberals did after Trump won in 2016? Would the folks at that rally last night sit down with me and listen to my concerns for our country? Are folks across the aisle willing to look their boogeymen in the eye and see that Hillary Clinton and illegal immigrants and BLM protestors are human and deserving of love too? 

If Ossoff and Warnock win, we’ll be encouraged to come together and meet in the middle. If Perdue and Loeffler win, half the state is going to get left behind. The law is sacred when it comes to families seeking asylum at the border but not when Perdue and Loeffler move stocks around after getting secret Senator intel on the pandemic (insider trading is illegal). The election process is a cornerstone of democracy, except when our state government does barely legal gymnastics to un-register voters, throw out ballots, close polling stations. When the President straight up asks to change the results of an election that was decided two months ago and none of his party criticizes him? Meeting in the middle just doesn’t work when the middle is moving further and further to the right. Meeting in the middle doesn’t work when one side thinks it’s a fully separate entity from the other, as if COVID-19 hasn’t articulated the ways in which we’re all exquisitely intimately connected to each other. 

And yet “meeting in the middle” is all we’ve got. If we really want to create a Georgia, a United States of America, that honors all of its citizens, if y’all really means ALL, then we can’t give up on each other. We’re so fractured, so angry at the worst of each side when most of us aren’t really polar opposites. The extremes make for good news stories so we eat them up but few of us are as depraved as the boogeymen at the edges of the spectrum. 

Some of what I’ve seen makes it seem like all conservatives don’t care one bit about the pandemic, they’re all running around gathering in crowds and they’re burning their masks and they’re all in cahoots to kidnap the governor of Michigan, that their concerns aren’t valid because three Trump supporters interviewed on the street couldn’t define socialism. I can only imagine what some folks might think of me, a supposed San Francisco radical liberal. It’s easy to hate on the stereotypes but it’s harder when you get to know people as complicated, earnest, flawed, loving whole humans. I’ve been away for a few years, but I’d venture that most Georgians want to strike a safe balance between curbing the pandemic and protecting their economic futures and loving their community and honoring their autonomy. We all want to believe in rules we can trust, create order from the entropy of a world that’s getting harder to recognize. We want affordable taxes and job security and clean air and a country we can proud to pass onto the next generation. We all live in different realities based on how we grew up, who we spend time with, the media we consume but that doesn’t mean we can’t talk to each other. 

“Get Along” by Kenny Chesney came on as I walked across Hartsfield-Jackson this morning to get to the gate that would take me back to San Francisco:

Get along, on down the road 
We got a long long way to go
Scared to live, scared to die
We ain’t perfect but we try 
Get along, while we can
Always give love the upper hand 

Our state continues to pave a way for our country moving forward. We do have a long way to go, and we sure aren’t perfect but we’re all standing on the same ground, the same red Georgia clay that continues to nourish us all. I'm still willing to look for what we share in common - are you?

xoxo

(This is a whole other essay but no runoff commentary is complete without acknowledging that Black women have paved the path and deserve their flowers. We're seeing unprecedented engagement with Latinx and AAPI and young voters, focused attention on mobilizing new or low-propensity voters rather than appealing to the mythical white moderate block. This election is the result of decades of organizing on the ground. Perdue and Loeffler campaigned on their opponents supporting the green new deal and defunding the police... and maybe this isn't a dealbreaker and maybe we ought to look into those? Let's not let down the people who mobilized for Warnock and Ossoff. I'm amazed by the number of Georgia voters who turned out in November and again in January. We're watching history unfold. We need to trust Black women everywhere.)

((This was written early on Tuesday 1/5. There's obviously no way to meet someone in the middle of coup. I still believe that most Georgians and most Americans have common ground if we're willing to release our boogeymen. I do not have an essay reflection on this coup yet lol))