Can't we all be a little more curious?

Interestingly, I use Instagram and Facebook in very different ways. It’s been fascinating in the most heartwrenching way to see how wildly different these two algorithms feed me information on Kirk’s death. They’re like separate worlds.

While it’s long been apparent, Kirk’s death cements for me how detached the information silos are from those of our neighbors. Living online makes that chasm expand exponentially.

We need to reconnect with our neighbors in person. Look in each other’s eyes. Ask challenging questions with a genuine intent to understand and find common ground. We have so much more in common than we don’t. Yet every online platform profits from trying to convince us that’s false. Inciting fear, anger, and hate enriches their bottom lines.

Even our President fuels this fire for personal gain. He had an opportunity last night during his 4-minute speech about the assassination to encourage us to quell violence across the board. He chose not to do that. He made it partisan.

Cherry-pick from his words, and you might find he offers some words of broad condemnation for political violence. But those words are empty when, in nearly the same breath, he blames “Radical Leftists” for all of the violence. On that, he is dead wrong, and it’s costing all of us our safety and freedom. Jonathan Chait of The Atlantic expresses it better than I.

Trump cherry-picks from a growing list of politically motivated violent acts. He intentionally ignores anything that doesn’t fit his narrative, even something so obvious and egregious as the Democratic Congresswoman shot in her own home in Minnesota just a few weeks ago.

To suggest this is a one-sided war is exactly what ignites the explosion. He knows it. How can we not see this?! We are each other’s saviors and strength, not him.

Ezra Klein offers a more comprehensive list of growing political violence and closes with a warning:

In the last few years we’ve seen:

– The plot to kidnap Gretchen Whitmer

– The Storming of the Capitol and pipe bombs left at the RNC and DNC

– The break-in to kidnap Nancy Pelosi and the brutal on Paul Pelosi

– Multiple assassination attempts against Trump

– The assassination of Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband and the shooting of on State Senator John Hoffman and his wife

– Luigi Mangione’s assassination of Brian Thompson

– The assassination of Charlie Kirk

Political violence is contagious. It is spreading. It is not confined to one side or belief system. It should terrify us all.

The foundation of a free society is the ability to participate in it without fear of violence. Political violence is always an attack against us all. You have to be so blind not to see that.

“You have to be so blind not to see that.” Not only does Trump not see it, he’s inviting it. Here is the full article that articulates Klein’s thoughts more clearly.

I started Connect Chadds Ford to (among other reasons) encourage us to connect in real life with neighbors. Join the Chadds Ford Walking Club and meet your neighbors. Show up to township meetings and find out what’s going on. Support local businesses and social organizations. Attend the fundraising events and sit at tables with people who don’t always think like you.

I want our actions to reinforce the web of resilience, community, and connection that will be our saving grace if/when this all falls apart. Sometimes it’s beautiful. Other times, it’s uncomfortable, but it’s worth it. And it’s the only way through this mess.

As I watch performative responses online to Kirk’s death and see people share things from behind screens they’ll never say face-to-face, my heart breaks. I’m totally crushed seeing some people I personally know sharing horrific things online or handing power and influence to people consistently sowing hate and violent rhetoric (the fuel of political violence).

I see you at school events, social activities, sports games, and more. I know the goodness in your hearts. I struggle to reconcile your simplistic hatred, division, or complete disconnection from a robust view of reality with the complex human being I know in real life.

Some of the single-mindedness is algorithmic media keeping us divided. But can’t we all get a little more curious? A little more compassionate? A bit more courageous to have hard conversations in person? What is it worth to find the humanity in each other? When are we no longer too busy, too tribal, or too distracted to stop paying in blood?

Today was our first meetup with the Chadds Ford Walking Club. It was lovely, and I hope you can join us in the future. Walking and chatting with nearly a dozen neighbors filled my broken heart. I needed that today.

And it more than reinforced my aspirations for Connect Chadds Ford as a means for building community in our neighborhoods. We won’t always agree; constructive discourse often makes us stronger. But it’s a lot harder to hate the neighbor with whom you’re hiking along the Brandywine than the one cowardly slinging political scum from behind a screen.

I hope I can come back tomorrow with my weekly update. But for today, it felt poignant to remember what we gain by connecting in real life and prioritizing each other’s humanity (even when people have different opinions, skin colors, genders, or favorite flavors of ice cream).

Political violence of all stripes rips up our relationships. It’s the ultimate sacrifice of freedom, not for freedom. Let’s be better together.