A ‘Time To Heal’ Will Take Work
“To everything there is a season: a time to build, a time to reap, and a time to sow and a time to heal” was Joe Biden’s version of the oft-quoted biblical passage in his election speech on Saturday evening.
“This,” he went on to declare, “is the time to heal in America.”
The sentiment is a noble one, a message that the nation needs to hear. But it registers as much easier said than done. Any assumption that partisans on the other side will automatically fall into step or even be susceptible to outreach is a leap of faith.
Donald Trump hasn’t even conceded the election. One way or the other, it’s impossible to overlook that he received the support of 72 million Americans. Much is made by Democrats of Biden’s lead in the popular vote – now running about 5.0 million. The one big wrinkle being that almost the entire difference comes from one big state. Take away California, and the two candidates finished in a dead heat across the rest of the country.
Those who want to believe that voters were holding their nose while voting for Trump are wrong. In truth, according to polling done for Our Common Purpose by Survey USA, Trump generated more enthusiasm among his constituency than did Biden, which might be one of the reasons the election turned out so close.
The nationwide survey conducted two weeks before the election showed that 56% of Trump backers were voting for him with enthusiasm, 36% with approval, and only 7% with misgivings. By comparison, 49% of Biden backers did so with enthusiasm, 40% with approval, and 10% with misgivings. When it came to the policies that participants in the poll believed their respective candidates would enact, 49% of Trump voters were enthusiastic compared with 41% of Biden voters. The Trump constituency isn’t going to go away.
The pending Biden administration dismisses or ignores all this at the peril of the nation. There needs to be a reckoning, one side with the other.
Biden has a history from his senatorial days of working with those on the other side of the aisle. In the present moment he gets kudos for intentionality. Having made unity a mantra of his campaign, he drove home the point on Saturday night. “It’s time to put away the harsh rhetoric, lower the temperature, see each other again, listen to each other again,” he implored.
Rather than trying to dismiss and ignore the other side, winner or loser, we need to acknowledge and listen. This will take much more than lip service. More than reaching out and making nice. It requires a genuine understanding of the other side and then being open to a legitimate give and take.
Finding common purpose is possible. It’s encouraging, for instance, that voters on both sides endorse the give and take represented in the 10 Principles to Unite America. The same nationwide survey cited above shows that 69% of those who backed Trump with enthusiasm and 75% of those who backed Biden with enthusiasm – in other words each of their strongest backers – registered themselves “totally comfortable” with the set of ideals.
There is interest among many voters for working together. The leaders of both parties would do well to heed Biden’s words on Saturday evening.
“I believe that this is part of the mandate given to us from the American people,” he said. “They want us to cooperate in their interest, and that’s the choice I’ll make. And I’ll call on Congress, Democrats and Republicans alike, to make that choice with me.”
Polls Show Strong Backing For Principles
Democrats and Republicans. Biden backers and Trump backers. White suburban women and black urban males.
In virtually every demographic and political category, two-thirds of voters said in a nationwide public opinion poll conducted in the days leading up to the election that they are “totally comfortable” with the 10 Principles to Unite America.
The survey is a repeat of one taken in early June on the days of the memorial service for George Floyd and slightly modified from one done in May as the nation debated reopening in the midst of the pandemic. The polls were conducted by SurveyUSA of separate sets of 1,500 registered voters each.
The overall percentages came out exactly the same in October as they did in June. In each, 65% of all respondents said they were totally comfortable with the principles, 30% somewhat comfortable, and the remaining 5% either not comfortable or not sure. In sum, 95% are at some level comfortable with the principles.
In both polls, the percentages held regardless of political affiliation. In the latest rendition, 65% of Republicans, 68% of Democrats, and 61% of independents said they were totally comfortable.
The most recent survey was undertaken to correlate the results with the race for president. In this particular poll, which was in the field from Oct. 15 through Oct. 20, Joe Biden led Donald Trump by seven percentage points nationwide. But when it came to the principles, 65% of Trump backers and 70% of Biden backers were totally comfortable with them.
The near-equal results held across gender, education level, income, religion, and urbanicity. So for instance, 68% of black urban males and 66% of white suburban females were totally comfortable with the principles.
The only noticeable fall-off from those figures occurs among young adults, Asian-Americans and Native Americans, all of whom hover in the neighborhood of 50% totally comfortable. Virtually all the remainder registered themselves somewhat comfortable.
In the case of each of those groups as well as Hispanics, there was a lower comfort level in October than in June, indicating perhaps their particular unease with events of the past four months.
Most of those polled understand that the principles are meant to be aspirational. Two-thirds (67%) said they portray what the country could be. Only 26% said they represent what the country already has achieved.
In addition to the overall evaluation of the 10 principles as a set of ideals, respondents were also asked their level of agreement with each of the principles taken individually.
Here again, the results in October mirrored June. The 10 principles enjoy strong agreement ranging from 62% up to 80%. Most everyone else “somewhat agrees” with them. The figures remained virtually the same June to October for almost all of them. The biggest change was a mere three percentage points.
The comfort levels with the 10 Principles to Unite America are consistent!
Conversation On Facebook
You’re invited to join a constructive dialogue to help flesh out each of the 10 Principles to Unite America.
The principles will be considered one at a time over the coming weeks on Facebook. Please join us at https://www.facebook.com/ourcommonpurpose/
Better Than Politics As Usual
Our Common Purpose is an alternative to the zero-sum game that our political system has become.
We are caught in a classic case of win-lose. Come November, one party and its diehard supporters will win. They will be ecstatic. The other party and its diehard supporters will lose. They will be despondent, or worse.
The reactions will be pronounced because the stakes are high. Part of the agitation has to do with the candidates. Beyond that, the agendas of the two parties are more than the other side can bear.
Swinging back and forth one election to the next from one extreme to the other has its consequences. Regardless of which party wins any particular election, the abrupt changes of direction, about-faces, doing only to undo is in the long run a losing proposition. America loses.
Our Common Purpose suggests a different course, proposing that even in this state of advanced disfunction we can find middle ground that reaches out to all. In this scenario, America certainly would win.
The overarching agenda of “10 Principles to Unite America” draws from both sides of the political spectrum. Neither side will be 100 percent winners. Neither though will either side be 100 percent losers. The principles quite deliberately seek to reconcile the opposing views by making tradeoffs that are acceptable to significant numbers on both sides.
As an example, let’s look briefly at Principle #4 Give Us Liberty, Though Not To Harm Others. Learn more about this principle.
“Give us liberty” is seen as a conservative rallying cry for individual freedom. Liberals hesitate at the thought because of their belief in our collective responsibility to each other.
But what happens when you balance one with the other, by combining the competing thoughts of Give Us Liberty, Though Not To Harm Others?
Good things happen. The most recent round of nationwide public opinion surveys conducted in June for Our Common Purpose showed that 77% of self-identified liberals strongly agreed with this particular principle. As did 68% of conservatives. This is not a win-lose proposition. It’s a win-win.
That’s the spirit of Our Common Purpose. It should be the spirit of the entire political process.
What broadly speaking can we undertake to find middle ground where all or at least most of us will come out ahead? If we can progress in that direction, the country will be the big winner.
Ginsberg = Equal Rights
“Equal Rights For All,” the clarion call leading off principle #6 of Our Common Purpose, is one of the many aspirations built into the “10 Principles to Unite America.” Learn more.
We are so much closer to that ideal today thanks to Ruth Bader Ginsburg than we would have been without her.
Her pioneering work in extending “equal protection of the laws” to the women of this country established the legal precedent that women – and for that matter, men – could not be discriminated against on the basis of their gender.
Pre-Ginsburg, it was widely accepted that the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment applied only to racial discrimination. After all, the 14th Amendment was one of the measures enacted after the Civil War to protect those who had just been released from slavery. When Ginsburg was done, the Supreme Court had come around to accept that the 14th Amendment should guarantee equal protection for all.
Long before she became a justice herself, Ginsburg sensitized the then all-male Supreme Court to the inequities built into what is said to be hundreds of laws based on the antiquated view that the woman’s role was in the home and men were better suited to deal with everything else. In six cases heard by the court in the 1970’s, she convinced the justices that “equal protection of the laws” pertained just as much to gender as to race. There can be no discrimination based on sex.
Ginsburg was an equal opportunity advocate. She often used male plaintiffs to show that men could be disadvantaged by these laws as well. To her, equality meant treating women and men exactly the same.
The capstone came 20 years later when Ginsburg, by then a justice herself, announced the court’s majority opinion that the all-male admissions policy of Virginia Military Institute was unconstitutional.
“Women seeking and fit for a V.M.I.-quality education cannot be offered anything less under the state’s obligation to afford them genuinely equal protection,” she wrote.
Women and other victims of discrimination quite rightly point out we still have lots of work to do to truly achieve “Equal Rights For All.” But the tireless efforts of Ruth Bader Ginsburg brought us so much closer to the mark.
The Collegiality of Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Arriving at Our Common Purpose is as much about process as it is principles. The process used for determining the principles.
One of the many renowned traits of Ruth Bader Ginsburg was her ability to work with others, even those who held a different view.
She credited her mother-in-law for giving her some good advice. “In every good marriage,” she counseled, “It helps sometimes to be a little deaf.”
Justice Ginsberg pointed out in an essay written in 2016 that the advice didn’t just apply at home. “I have employed it as well in every workplace, including the Supreme Court,” she wrote. “When a thoughtless or unkind word is spoken, best tune it out. Reacting in anger or annoyance will not advance one’s ability to persuade.”
Collegiality, she wrote in that same article, is crucial to the success of the Court.
“The questions we take up are rarely easy; they seldom have indubitably right answers. Yet by reasoning together at our conferences and, with more depth and precision, through circulation of, and responses to, draft opinions, we ultimately agree far more often than we divide sharply.”
Excerpted from an essay, which originally appeared in The New York Times Sunday Review in 2016 and was reprinted today, that was adapted from the book “My Own Words” co-written by Justice Ginsberg.
Polls Show Principles Bridge The Political Divide
The 10 even-handed phrases that make up Our Common Purpose attract strong across-the-board support from Republicans, Democrats and independents.
“I love the unifying aspects of the statements.”
— a Democrat in Florida.
“They represent everything I want in my country.”
— a Republican in California.
“I feel like most of the ideals would solve the current issues we are having.”
— an independent in North Dakota.
Yes, this is hard to believe in our crazy, seemingly hopelessly divided country. Two rounds of a nationwide public opinion survey showing the set of “10 principles to unite America” appeal to strong majorities of Republicans, Democrats and independents — in virtually equal percentages. Hard to imagine that a majority of Republicans, Democrats and independents agree about something, agree about anything. And yet here you have it.
The results demonstrate two major points:
- A majority of Americans are ready, perhaps even hungry, for something different from what they are getting from today’s class of politicians.
- We can find accord, certainly in terms of our ideals, if we put our minds to doing so. The basic idea being to start from known points of agreement, such as those presented here, and working forward from there.
The 10 principles were tested in one national sample of 1,500 voters, honed a bit further, then tested again in a second sample of another 1,500 voters. The polls, conducted for Our Common Purpose by SurveyUSA in May and June 2020, produced nearly identical results across the political spectrum. In the second, 65% of voters — including 64% of Republicans, 67% of Democrats, and 64% of independents — were “totally comfortable” with the set of 10 principles.
The consistency extends to demographic groups. The samples of some sub sub-groups are too small to be too specific but . . . Suburban white women? Urban black men? Rural white men? All more than 60% “totally comfortable.”
On top of the above results, another 30% of respondents were “somewhat comfortable” with the principles. Added together, 95% of voters were comfortable to one degree or another.
This even though the timing of the two surveys couldn’t have been more disquieting. The May study was done in the midst of the heated debate over whether the country should remain closed or open up in response to the pandemic. The June study was conducted on the very days of the memorial services for George Floyd. If anything, our divisions have seemed to wedge even deeper.
You wouldn’t know it from the survey results.
Highest rated in both rounds of the survey is Principle #6: Equal Rights For All; Responsibilities For All. In the first round, 78% strongly agreed. In the second, the number rose to 81%. Another 17% somewhat agreed.
While the wording of this and the other principles might have a somewhat familiar ring, most of the survey-takers understood them to be ideals that go beyond the status quo.
“This is just what America is supposed to be,” wrote a Republican from Georgia.
Her assessment is indicative of the many written comments made by respondents to the two surveys. Only a very small minority resorted to the highly partisan, accusatory us versus them barbs we have become conditioned to expect. The great majority of respondents, perhaps inspired or at least influenced by the nature of the principles, chose to speak in terms of we as a nation or we the people.
“I love all the positivity, the caring, at what needs to be done,” commented a Democrat from Illinois.
The implications are enormous. Put something reasonable and positive in front of Americans, and the great majority will respond accordingly. We all should find this greatly encouraging. The principles are:
- Informative. We are careening these days from issue to issue, cause to cause, without any sense of overall direction. Some have lost sight of True North, or perhaps never learned it. Common purpose provides a set of standards to guide our actions – individually and collectively.
These are principles we should all live by.
— A Republican in Michigan
They are all core foundational values of the American system.
— An independent in New Jersey
These beliefs are important as a citizen to adhere to.
— A Democrat in Texas
- Unifying. We are presented daily with evidence of discord, creating a sense that we are tearing apart rather than gathering together. The media’s attention is directed at the extremes rather than the backbone that holds us together. Common purpose spells out what many believe but haven’t had the words to cite.
We are all on the same ship, we sink or swim together.
— An independent in Virginia
It is best for America to be united now more than ever. It is not about politics. It is about our country.
— A Republican in Maryland
We have to all work together to achieve a common goal.
— A Democrat in Tennessee
- Aspirational. While the phrasing has a familiar ring, none of the principles presented here is an endorsement of the status quo. Had we been taking these steps all along to heal past wounds, remedy wrongs, build upon progress, work toward a more perfect union, we probably wouldn’t be in the fix we find ourselves today. Common purpose makes it clear we have work to do.
If all Americans put action to these words, we would be a much greater country.
— An independent in Colorado
I think they are a perfect set of values! We could follow them.
— A Democrat in Florida
Idealistic statements, bring it on.
— A Republican in Indiana
- Foundational. With all that the principles have to offer, they are only a starting point. Such ideals will not be achieved automatically, all occurring in due course. They require much further discussion, of the very type that led to the principles themselves, to agree upon steps to pursue each of them.
These statements sound good in theory but I don’t know that they are easily applied.
— A Republican in Alabama
As a whole they are good, but the devil is in the details.
— A Democrat in California
I think the principles are important values that should guide decision making in our society.
— An independent in the state of Washington
Common purpose provides a foundation, but only that. It needs to be built upon. There’s a lot we can and should do just to get the wheels turning:
- Spread the word of these principles to the greater public.
- Make the principles the subject of discussions big and small.
- Do the hard work of developing the principles from high-minded slogans into meaningful action.
- Introduce all of the above into the national dialogue.
Interested in learning more? The principles will be rolled out one-by-one in more detail in the coming weeks on this website.
Sign up here to receive the updates. And please share this information with others. There’s a lot at stake.
Contrary to what we keep hearing, we can’t agree on anything anymore, the 10 points of agreement indicate that we can. The thought is freeing, refreshing, even uplifting. And oh my, how important to the condition of our country!