This is an election year and the mud slinging is heating up. The power of the internet combined with the ease of social media gives us the power to say something and within a nanosecond it is distributed across the world. That same power means that you can speak without thinking—and you can never get your words back. In an age of instant news and zero editorial oversight (everyone is a journalist), our words can cut deeper than any sword.

But it isn’t just “the internet” that diminishes and bullies and demeans others. Sometimes it is you. And me. And we do it without thinking. And it has consequences. We don’t just debate ideas. We crush the people who have views that don’t line up with ours.

We establish our position, we “hang out” with people like us, and then we attack those who disagree. It is “us” versus “them” – and we find energy in establishing our position and destroying the people on the other side. It is a cancel culture.

Us versus them sells. It produces clicks. It creates headlines. There are entire news channels on TV and talk shows on the radio that make bazillions by pitting one group against the other.

• Republican vs Democrat

• Liberal vs conservative

• Pro-life vs pro-choice

• “Black Lives Matter” vs “All Lives Matter”

• Evangelical vs Mainline

• LGBTQ vs traditional family values

• Red state vs blue state

• White Privilege vs Critical Race Theory

• Pro-Israel vs Pro-Palestine

This is the story of our planet. All around the world, for all of history, the us’s have been killing the them’s. Nazi Germany. Al Qaeda. ISIS. The Crusades. Gaza.

But it’s not just world wars or regional conflicts. It’s not just news headlines and talk shows. Sometimes it is your Instagram reel. Or your Facebook posts. Or your conversations with close friends. Or the thing you talk about in your church life group.

This is perhaps never more apparent than during the United States presidential election. Today marks 70-days until election day, and I’m watching the rhetoric among friends on social media get very personal:

• How can you be a Christian and vote Democrat?

• No one who loves Jesus can possibly be voting for Donald Trump. 

There are always going to be Christians acting very unchristian, but never more so, it seems, than during an election year. I wrote about this in Marked by Love -- my book which was published in 2018. In the book, I included this quote from Brene Brown (with her permission) in which she summed up the 2016 election quite appropriately:

“Here’s what I believe:

“1. If you are offended or hurt when you hear Hillary Clinton or Maxine Waters called bitch, whore, or the c-word, you should be equally offended and hurt when you hear those same words used to describe Ivanka Trump, Kellyanne Conway, or Theresa May.

“2. If you felt belittled when Hillary Clinton called Trump supporters “a basket of deplorables” then you should have felt equally concerned when Eric Trump said, “Democrats aren’t even human.”

“3. When the president of the United States calls women dogs, or talks about grabbing pussy, we should get chills down our spine and resistance flowing through our veins. When people call the president of the United States a pig, we should reject that language regardless of our politics and demand discourse that doesn’t make people subhuman.

“4. When we hear people referred to as animals or aliens, we should immediately wonder, “Is this an attempt to reduce someone’s humanity so we can get away with hurting them or denying them basic human rights?”

“5. If you’re offended by a meme of Trump Photoshopped to look like Hitler, then you shouldn’t have Obama Photoshopped to look like the Joker on your Facebook feed.

“There is a line. It’s etched from dignity. And raging, fearful people from the right and left are crossing it at unprecedented rates every single day. We must never tolerate dehumanization—the primary instrument of violence that has been used in every genocide recorded throughout history.”

— Brene Brown, Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone, (Random House, 2017).

We have lost the ability to “agree to disagree.” We have stopped treating people with the dignity that every human being deserves. We don’t seem able to discuss or debate a weighty topic without attacking the person who takes the other position.  I recently heard a TV commentator debating deficit reduction say of the other side: “I wish they were all f***ing dead.”

That’s strong. But it is symbolic of our culture. It is also symbolic of how we sometimes think about others. We might choose different words, but sometimes we just wish they didn’t exist.

• They don’t think like I do.

• They don’t see the world like I do.

• They don’t treat people like I think they should.

• They don’t stand for what’s right like I do.

• They don’t care about the poor as much as I do.

• They lack compassion.

• They care nothing about national security.

Maybe you’ve never said it out loud, but sometimes you just wish they would go away. You wish the bullet had been one inch to the right. You wish she'd just have a stroke. 

This is not love. This is not the heart of Jesus. This is not Christian behavior. And yet we've all been guilty of it.

We. Can. Do. Better.

Seventy days remain until election day. That's enough time to change our behavior. In next week's article I'm going to unpack a story where Jesus modeled exactly how we should treat the "thems." He literally showed us how to engage, how to react, how to respond, and how to love. 

We can all do better.