At first, the evidence seemed overwhelming. Dozens of districts were redrawn, gerrymandered for the purpose of guaranteeing Republicans’ voting supremacy. Floods of money poured into those same districts to defeat Democrats by discrediting them. Attempts to restrict voter access or even deny voting itself were eventually thwarted by a slew of court decisions. Threats of intimidation at the polls never materialized, but for a while it felt that people would be afraid to show up and vote. There was a cavalcade of evidence which was designed to produce a skewed outcome.
Hope is believing in spite of the evidence and then watching the evidence change. The evidence did indeed change, and no end of commentary has been offered for why that happened. Many are saying and writing that the blue wave involved the repudiation of President Trump’s vulgarity, cruelty, and corruption. The flipping of the House and Senate to the Democrats was deemed a referendum on tariffs and the Iran war, and the results indicate that the President has failed on both fronts. And the wanton illegality caused millions of people to switch sides and their allegiance. No doubt all those things played a part.
For me, what transcended the fear and manipulation was that the midterm elections became a celebration of diversity. Not diversity as policy, which has produced a fierce backlash in so many quarters across the country. Many have received mandating diversity as an attempt at shaming and experienced it as an attempt at domination. DEI – diversity, equity, and inclusion – has been under intense fire for the past two years, and that unrelenting attack has been somewhat successful.
The diversity I am talking about is a celebration of who we are – in the wide and wonderful way of difference. It has been said that this election produced the first openly gay senator, the first black woman governor, the first Muslim and Indigenous senators, the first lumberjack, and on and on and on. Yet as far as I can discern, none of those winning candidates ran on their race, sexuality or religion. I didn’t know that Chris Pappas was gay until a series of opposition ads sought to highlight the alleged unethical business practices of his dating partners – all men – which supposedly would discredit Mr. Pappas himself. It didn’t work.
Diversity is a gift. Which may not always be wanted or welcomed. When I lived in Japan after college, I had a hard time adjusting to Japanese customs and ways of life. They were so foreign to me. Like many from the West, I struggled to learn the language. The most basic sentences were organized in a completely different way. The basic English statement, “this is a pen,” becomes “as for a pen, this is,” in Japanese. Despite all the challenges that confronted me, my two-year tenure in Japan helped to expand my mind to new understandings and open my heart to receive more experiences.
Many decades later, I developed a close relationship with a rabbi and imam. We hosted our own local TV show, “A Matter of Faith.” We were not only deeply committed to our own faith tradition, but to learning from one another. We often commented that sharing our theological differences as a Christian, Jew, and Muslim gave us a deepening appreciation that the faith journey has many paths. My Christian faith was bolstered by our time together and the differences we explored. My Jewish and Muslim brothers made the same claim.
In the 13th century, St. Thomas Aquinas referred to diversity as the perfection of the universe. Diversity opens us up to both beauty and breadth. Diversity provides space for more opportunities to learn and grow. Diversity helps us see, as one of my cherished mentors, author and Catholic priest Henri Nouwen (1932-1996), often remarked, that a key ingredient of the spiritual journey is not to see how we are different but how we are the same.
That will be a challenge when the new Congress convenes in January. The diversity of the incoming class of senators and representatives may be celebrated now, but when they get down to debate and making decisions, that appreciation could evaporate like morning dew. Will disagreement be honored and worked through, or will it lead to toxic division, which has been the case for the last 10 years? Will the Democratic Socialists and the moderate Democrats see their political diversity as a gift and a strength, or will they revert to the paralyzing practice of politics being a zero-sum game and seek to dominate each other? Will Democrats be open to seek out the wisdom and participation of their Republican counterparts, or will they castigate them as enemies?
In his acceptance speech upon election as the junior senator from Texas, James Talarico invoked a litany of hope: that we embrace “not a politics of hate, not a politics of fear, not a politics of division, but a politics of love.” He called on all of us to “repair the ties that bind us.”
A celebration of diversity and the recognition of the need for diversity can be the thread that stitches the wounds back together. We all – senators, representatives, all of us- need to hold up that value and work to support diversity, not as mandated policy, but as an extraordinary gift and a foundation for hope.
Mark Beckwith is a retired bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Newark, N.J. He lives in Jaffrey.