Yes, World, It's Worse in America Than You Think

Earlier this week, a friend from Australia sent me a text.

He’d been watching the news and said he wanted to check on me.

“We’re heartbroken to see what’s going on there.” He wrote. “Is it really as bad as it looks?”

Another sweet reader from England emailed me this morning with similar concern for our nation and for me, based on what she’s been reading and seeing in the media.

Over the past year, many kind-hearted people from all over the world have made similar inquiries about America, asking if it is as dire and alarming up close as it appears from a distance.

Yes, yes it is.

In fact, it’s actually far worse here on the ground, because all the ugliness people can see from thousands of miles away is probably still rather abstract, a largely undefinable, faceless wave of malice and bigotry, something to be analyzed and picked apart and studied. To them, it’s likely a fascinating, if not terrifying, historical event.

But here on the ground, this malignant sickness has a distinct face, one that is far too familiar:

It’s the face of family members whose newly revealed racism is continually confronting us around the dinner table.
It’s the face of former church friends, who have completely abandoned the Jesus they claim faith in and chosen the vilest of idols.
It’s the face of once pleasant neighbors who casually regurgitate extremist propaganda in sidewalk conversations.
It’s the face of childhood friends spewing anti-immigrant filth on their social media profiles.
It’s the face of storeowners and hair stylists and restaurant workers, the interactions with whom have become careful walks through conversational minefields.

So yes, it’s the staggering cruelty of those holding the power here, but just as much, it’s the people we know and live alongside who are so gladly empowering them by supporting them.

Yes, it’s the complete bastardization of the rule of law and the systems of protections our forebears put in place to avoid putting our nation in such peril, but it’s our coworkers and uncles and classmates who don’t seem to give a damn about that.

Yes, it’s one political party’s sociopathic lack of empathy and their unrepentant viciousness, but it’s the people we’ve shared Thanksgiving dinner with and served on mission trips alongside, who share their venom and boost their signal.

Yes, it’s Republican politicians’ incessant attacks on the poor and the sick and the vulnerable, but it’s the once kind-hearted people we love, who have been so poisoned by partisan talking points and perverted Christian theology that they celebrate all of it.

That’s why this is all so bad.

We’re certainly losing the big things here: the integrity of our elections, the stability of our Republic, the faith in our systems, the illusion that our Republican leaders will put anything over power and party.

But we’re losing much more than that.
We’re losing the soft places we called home: our families and our churches and our circle of friends.
We are swiftly and almost hourly seeing the relational fractures that may have always been there beneath the surface, but are now visible and cavernous.
We’re trying to decide whether to fight for relationships we’ve spent our lives nurturing, or whether we need to sever those connections in the name of self-preservation.
These things will never make the news or have a global impact, but they are shattering our personal worlds to the bedrock.

So, we’re fighting and opposing and working and resisting in the face of this monumental and historically malevolent national political cancer—and while we’re doing that, we’re also trying to preserve our families and our friendships and our workplaces, which are also hanging by a thread.

This is a Constitutional crisis, and it’s a family emergency.

We’re wondering what happened to our nation, and to people we once loved and respected; to our parents, grandparents, siblings, neighbors, and best friends.

Yes, our Democracy is in peril, but our most treasured relationships with people are in tatters, too.

We are trying to salvage both, and it’s exhausting.

Our efforts involve defending our Republic and rebuilding our tribes.

So yes, friends around the world, thank you for caring about us in America.

It is as bad as it looks from where you’re standing.

But I promise you, it’s far worse up close.