I don't know

     Now, as President-elect Joe Biden speaks hopefully of an era that sees an end to the bitter division, enflamed hatred and demonization that have consumed America and manifested in the current generation, I find distressing the viewpoint expressed in this personal story from HuffPost (scroll down). There are any number of sermons in there, but I'm not going to preach them or blog them even as I see the United States going the way of every empire in human history that, having failed itself and its people, eventually fell of its own doing. 

    Against the story below, we need to not be resolved to harbor hatred. But in response to the story, I'll not say that forgiveness is mandatory when I am among the least hurt and my class of white males among the most hurtful. 

    Human history is of conquest, taking the land of weaker peoples, in the Bible it's the story of Joshua's conquest of the Promised Land; and that's our USA history as well. Seemingly trying to correct symbolically, much of Oklahoma was recently declared Indian Reservation, Native American territory. I'm comfortably at home here and like to think that won't happen to the Florida Panhandle in my Time, though I suppose it could: in my growing up years this area was covered with "Indian mounds" that we boys loved to dig through hunting arrowheads. But MAGA? From immigrant origins and ideals about religious and social freedom, we've been blighted with slavery and racism, segregation, homophobia, xenophobia, all manner of bigotry, prejudice, blind evil: morally, America was never Great, and so does not have greatness to Make Again, but only to have as a carrot, and even that only if we can agree on ideals. Or at least if we can begin with a majority agreeing that what we have seen and experienced was a terrible warning that we do not want to Become, as hopefully was expressed on November 3. 

    In my Time of America, heavily weighted by unity in coming through a Depression and in fighting World War Two, and as segregation fell in the South, I believed America was destined for greatness, but People happened, Human Nature happened, and I am trying to work out in my mind what exactly destroyed the American dream. Maybe fear, people, especially those of us at the top of the society feeling threatened. I've watched, am watching, it happen. America was never great, but there was a dream and hope, and promise. I see now that Americans do not share a common dream. Maybe we never did.

    E PLURIBUS UNUM. Can we be One nation ... indivisible, With liberty and justice for all? I don't know. The idea is being tested, not only as to whether we can do it, but as to whether we even WANT to. I do know that I lived and loved more than eight decades of Confidence and Hope, but in the tension of rights vs responsibilities, the American idea carries the heavy personal cost, which is sacrifice, of Love Neighbor that, nearing life's end, I no longer believe Americans embrace. And, truly, from the Time magazine and Life magazine expose' of our My Lai atrocity*, I've realized that we are not Special at all as I had always let myself believe, we are the same humans as the best and the worst. Indeed, I have seen that the authoritarianism that happened in Germany beginning nearly a century ago, that in my Time engulfed the world in unspeakable horror, could happen here.

    But as usual, I ramble. Below is another American's experience of America. When all is said and done, do we have any human decency? Do we care how much other Americans hurt - - or how much we hurt other Americans? I don't know. I hope so, but I'm still watching. 

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HUFFPOST PERSONAL 11/12/2020 10:50AM EST

No, I Will Not Be 'Reaching Out' To Trump Voters, Now Or Ever. Here's Why.

"Some fences cannot be mended.”

By Jamie Davis Smith

When Donald Trump was elected in 2016, like millions of other Americans, I was horrified. He had campaigned on a platform of hate, pledging to ban Muslims from entering the United States and build a literal wall to keep Latinos out of the country. He stoked anti-Semitism, mocked a disabled reporter and had a history of misogyny. 

Once Trump actually became president, he called white supremacists “very fine people,” locked children in cages and systematically sought to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, disregarding the millions of Americans who would be left without access to health care if he were successful..

Over the past four years, I’ve lived in fear as Trumpism has taken over the country. In counties where Trump held campaign rallies, hate crimes increased a shocking 226%, showing that this rhetoric has real consequences for marginalized groups. Nearly everyone in America who is not a natural-born white, Christian heterosexual male in relatively good health has been targeted by the policies of the Trump administration.

As a Jew, an atheist, a woman and the mother of a disabled child, I have watched as my communities have been threatened repeatedly. The day the 2020 election was called with Joe Biden projected to be our next president, I danced in the streets at Black Lives Matter Plaza along with thousands of others who finally felt like this long nightmare was coming to an end.

But almost immediately, we began to hear calls to reach out to Trump supporters to mend fences. Pop star Katy Perry encouraged fans to follow her lead and tell family members who voted for Trump that they are “here for them.” Political scientist Ian Bremmer encouraged Biden voters to reach out to Trump supporters to show empathy. Former Sen. Rick Santorum, who compared same-sex marriage to bestiailty while holding office, urged Biden supporters to give Trump and his voters “space” to work through their feelings. These suggestions enraged me.

These calls for unity come from a place of privilege, and they’re coming from mostly straight, white, cisgender people who are financially secure. They may not have liked some of Trump’s policies, but they were not actively harmed by them. They likely never feared for their safety or well-being in Trump’s America.

Gestures toward reconciliation are also premature, given that Trump has yet to concede the election and still has about two months left in office to inflict even more damage.

Before any attempt at “unity” can be made, there needs to be a reckoning, an acknowledgment that so many of Trump’s actions have been unconscionable and do not align with societal ideals that claim to value all life. Building bridges with people who share Trump’s views sends a clear message that you are willing to keep the peace at the expense of the dignity and well-being of those with less power and privilege.

My friends and family members who supported Trump had four years to renounce his policies. Instead, they stood by him. They knew that Trump’s policies had a very real impact on my life, and they showed me time and time again that they did not care.

These calls for understanding ignore the very real fact that Trump has had a tremendous impact on the lives of so many marginalized people.

Jews like me were literally slaughtered in their place of worship in my home state of Pennsylvania, where a gunman opened fire on the congregation at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. The president failed to implement commonsense gun control policies while stoking anti-Semitism, claiming that “Jews are only in it for themselves.” Trump repeatedly questioned whether Jews could be loyal to the United States by telling Jews that Israel is “your country,” seemingly unwilling to distinguish American Jews from Israelis. In this climate, it was inevitable that violence would be unleashed against Jews and that some would lose their lives. I will not forgive, and I will not forget.

As an atheist, I have watched in horror as the Trump administration has tried to turn our country, which was founded on the belief that church and state should remain separate, into a theocracy. Trump’s latest Supreme Court pick, Amy Coney Barrett, is poised to impose her extreme religious views on the rest of us. She has gone so far as to state that Catholic judges are “obliged to adhere to their church’s teaching on moral matters.” Religious views have allowed corporations such as Hobby Lobby to circumvent laws requiring insurance coverage for birth control and discriminate against the LGBTQ community.

As the mother of two daughters, I have spent the Trump years fearing that none of us will have the right to control our own reproductive choices if Trump has his way. I have watched as Trump’s atrocious handling of the pandemic has forced women out of the workforce in record numbers. He bragged about how his celebrity status allows him to sexually assault women without impunity, and then he lashed out at the 26 women who have accused him of sexual assault. The fact that such a person could rise to the most powerful office in the world has created a dangerous environment for all women.

Time and time again, Trump has tried to dismantle the Affordable Care Act. Each time, his administration has put my disabled daughter’s future at risk, along with the futures of millions of other Americans with preexisting conditions. My daughter’s well-being depends on the ACA, and trying to save it has consumed much of my life for the past four years. My daughter got to know Capitol Hill well, as I often visited with her and challenged senators to look at her and tell her that life had no value, that she was too expensive to insure.

Over the past eight months, I’ve felt helpless as Trump has failed to control COVID-19, preferring instead to wish it away. Even though he said at least 40 times that the coronavirus would disappear, it is instead tearing through the country with a vengeance, claiming the lives of two of my family members and making several of my friends and family very ill. Some of them have not yet fully recovered. Trump’s wishful thinking has forced my family to isolate and kept my children from school and away from their grandparents. It has deeply hurt friends who are small-business owners and others who have lost their jobs as a result of Trump’s stunningly poor handling of the virus.

My heart has broken many times over as I’ve witnessed other atrocities wrought by Trump. The children forced into camps, separated from their parents. My friends in loving same-sex and trans relationships who worried that their marriages would no longer be recognized and who rushed to adopt their own children when Trump took office, fearing that he would take away their parental rights. My Black friends who had to endure their president making openly racist remarks and advocating violence against Black Lives Matter protesters.

Indifference in the face of such cruelty does not deserve understanding, now or ever. Some fences cannot be mended. 

Through all of this, my communities have come together in solidarity with one another to fight against Trump’s hateful acts. We are allies to one another, even when not directly under attack. Those who supported Trump, and those who still do, lack the compassion and the basic decency to recognize that every life has value. I have no need for them in my life and no desire to now pretend that I can accept their views, that any of this was ever OK.

Those who supported Trump and those who remained neutral in the face of such cruelty enabled him. I will not forget, and I certainly will not forgive.

Do you have a personal story you’d like to see published on HuffPost? Find out what we’re looking for here and send us a pitch!

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And BTW, don't bother taking issue with me regarding what Jamie Davis Smith says: that's her experience of America, and I have to care, because she's my Neighbor, and my Baptismal Covenant with God never ceases to challenge me.

* My Lai, Vietnam. 1968: helpless old men, women, children, toddlers, infants, brutally massacred, senselessly slaughtered by American troops who "had to destroy the village in order to save it". Just as for Germany there is no way back to Before the Holocaust, for America there is no way back to Before My Lai; and my shame eclipses any pride I ever had. My hope now is in a determined electorate holding evil back, and a democratic system that does not succumb to bullying. TW+