DON’T STOP DISCUSSING POLITICS AT DINNER TABLES

I’ll never forget Jan. 6, 2021. I started it with a sunrise walk in the beach areas of San Diego with my friend Chris. We discussed the day’s big event: electoral votes being officially counted by the newly seated 117th Congress in advance of the 45th peaceful transition of power in our great nation. Despite several elected officials grandstanding and violating their oaths of office by voting to refuse the seating of electors for results they didn’t like based on dubious (and now knowably false) “evidence,” we opined the day would be uneventful.

We were dead wrong.

As the morning began, we saw elected officials ignore their constitutional responsibility to our country in service to a radical and anti-democratic effort to usurp the will of the American people. Instead of participating in one of our great democratic traditions, they showed us that the oaths they swore when taking office were mere talking points.

And then we saw what was happening on the outside, through a live feed direct to cable news. The world watched as violent criminals, intent on overthrowing the national government, stormed the seat of it after being egged on by the sitting U.S. president.

I thought of my friends in the Capitol. Members of Congress from right here in San Diego, one of whom was three days into her first term, were hiding in the gallery and fearing for their lives. Staffers were hiding under desks, sending chilling goodbye text messages to their loved ones because they thought they were going to be killed by the mob of conspiracy theorists swarming through the hallways, intent on finding the vice president and the speaker of the House to impose their will upon them.

A year later, some of those staffers have left their jobs due to the post-traumatic stress they faced working side-by-side with people they believed didn’t care if they lived or died.

So where do we go from here? Well, we must demand that our political leaders be intellectually honest, traffic only in facts and not in conspiracy, and be especially willing to speak truth to power within their own political parties. We can demand that by speaking up, at work, home and in the community spaces we all share when these subjects come up.

If we value our republic and the freedoms we enjoy, it’s on us to keep it together. The only way we can do that is by electing honorable people of sound judgment and character to represent us in government leadership roles at all levels. My friend Mike likes to regularly remind folks that “government is serious business for serious people.” That can be true if we make it so, but to do that we’ve got to be willing to do the work.

Please stop ignoring the alarms. Do not be afraid to discuss politics or religion at the dinner table, water cooler or anywhere else. In order to get back to a healthy national discourse, we must have informed discussions with those who care about us and embody different views from us. We must not be afraid to push back when conspiracy and conjecture take the place of facts and values. We must send those who peddle in fringe conspiracy back where they belong. We must stand up for our country and demand our leaders have the character to lead with courage and integrity.