Episode #0108 Christmas Love Can Heal Our Divided Nation

Merry Christmas!

Just a week ago, we passed the Winter Solstice. Darkness dominates our days and sometimes our moods.

Just days after the light begins its return, we celebrate Christmas—the birth of Jesus, Divine Love, into our world.
Our Divided Nation
Light and Love could not come at a better time. Despite all our technology, wealth, knowledge and progress, we are in a bitter time. Our nation is deeply divided economically, socially and politically.

We are spending enormous amounts of time, energy and emotion yelling at each other and demonizing each other. We’ve lost the ability to have a calm, rational discussion about things.

We aren’t listening to each other in good faith, trying to understand what others truly mean. Instead, we interpret what the Others say in the most negative way we can. Then we attack them based not on what they meant, but on our negative interpretation.

It is a setup. The purpose is not to get to the Truth. The purpose is to create an image of others that we can attack. To scorch them. To destroy them, if we can.

It can feel so good to be self-righteous, and to demonize and attack others.

This demonization and division going on in our nation is very dangerous, however. It puts our national security at risk, damages our ability to achieve success, and makes each of us mean-spirited, awful people.

This behavior weakens our nation socially, politically, psychologically and spiritually. Worst of all, our nastiness threatens our own national security. This brutal infighting sends a message to our international foes that we are divided and weak.
Danger to Our National Security
We have lived comfortably in a Pax Americana since World War II. We have little understanding of the real horrors of war. Our battles have been fought on other continents. The vast majority of us have never really sacrificed for our national security.

But we face some rising foes who want to destroy our nation and they are developing the capability to do it. If these interpret our division as weakness, it can embolden them to attack us.

Overstated? Not at all. There are plenty of examples of American intentions being misinterpreted with nasty, unintended results.

North Korea attacked South Korea in 1950 because they misinterpreted American statements at the time as indicating that the US wouldn’t defend South Korea.

In 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait because Saddam Hussein misinterpreted American statements as indicating that the US wouldn’t defend Kuwait.

Russia invaded Crimea 2014 and Georgia in 2008 because Russian leadership figured the US and NATO wouldn’t oppose those invasions.

We’re currently head-to-head with Russia in Europe, China in the South China Sea and Iran in the Persian Gulf. Our internal social and political division sends them the dangerous message that we are weak. It can be tempting to take advantage of an opponent while they are weak.

We need get our act together for our own national security.
Danger to Our American Understanding of Life
One of the greatest things about America is that, from the beginning, we have been a nation united not by ethnicity, but by a shared understanding of life, freedom and happiness. We thrive when we embrace that shared understanding of life, making good-faith compromises with each other to move forward as a team.

Right now, TEAM USA is a mess.

As I discuss in my book, On Leadership: What’s Broken in Our Society and How We Fix It, that fundamental American understanding of life is under deep attack in our nation. If we fail to reaffirm, pursue and unite around that American understanding, we will cease to be America. We’re going to find ourselves unhappy and in deep trouble socially, economically and politically. We better get our act together to survive as a nation.
Personal Danger
Finally, few things are as tempting or make you feel as good as denouncing bad people in the name of moral righteousness.