The Most Radical Thing You Can Do This Election

During this election season in America, the most radical thing you can do may not be changing someone’s mind.

It may be talking to them.

Really talking. Without preparing your comeback. Without waiting for your turn. Without deciding they are stupid, dangerous, or beyond saving.

When Fear Makes Strangers Into Enemies

Fear tells us that people who disagree with us are the enemy. It turns different views into different tribes. Curiosity into suspicion. Conversation into combat.

And the less we talk, the more frightening the other side becomes.

Not because we know them better. Because we know them less.

When we stop listening, we stop seeing the person. We see a category. A label. A threat. We fill in the gaps with our worst assumptions. We imagine monsters where there are only humans with different fears, different stories, different hopes for their families.

Fear loves distance. It thrives in silence. The moment we stop having conversations, fear gets to write the story about who “they” are. And fear always writes the same story: they are dangerous, they are wrong, they are beyond reach.

The Ancient Truth About Division

The Greeks had a word for this: diabolos—the devil. It comes from dia-ballein, which literally means “to throw across,” with meanings that include to set at variance, to divide, and to slander. The devil is the one who separates.

Contrast that with sym-ballein—“to throw together”—the root of symbolon, our word for symbol. A symbol was originally something that joined two halves, a token of connection.

The devil separates. And the devil is fear.

God unites. And God is love.

Whatever name you give it—whether you call it the divine, the universe, or simply the better angels of our nature—the truth remains the same: fear pulls people apart, and love brings them together.

So every time we let fear make an enemy of a stranger, we are doing the dividing. Every conversation across a divide is an act of joining. Every moment we choose to listen instead of dismiss is choosing love over fear.

Love Is Not Agreement

Let me be clear: Love does not ask us to abandon our values or pretend the stakes don’t matter. They do.

Love is not saying “both sides are the same” or “it doesn’t matter what anyone believes.” Some things matter deeply. Some policies harm real people. Some ideas have real consequences.

Love asks something harder: Can I stand firmly for what I believe without needing to hate the person across from me?

Can I hold my ground without dehumanizing someone who holds different ground?

Can I be curious about what they are afraid of losing, even when I disagree with their solution?

Choosing love over fear is not weakness. It’s not naivety. It’s the most difficult, most courageous thing we can do. Because it requires us to stay human in a moment when fear is screaming at us to shut down, to turn away, to build walls.

What Love Asks Instead

Love asks us to look for the future we both want, even when we disagree about how to get there.

It asks us to listen long enough to hear the human being underneath the politics.

It asks us to consider that the person we’ve been told to fear might be just as scared as we are. That their anger might be covering the same vulnerability. That their certainty might be hiding the same doubt.

Love asks us to remember that most people are not trying to destroy the world. They’re trying to protect something they care about. Their family. Their community. Their way of life. Their sense of safety.

And when we understand what someone is trying to protect, we often find that we want to protect something similar. We just have different ideas about how.

This doesn’t mean we agree. It means we stop making enemies out of people who are, at their core, trying to navigate the same uncertain world we are.

A Practice for This Week

Here’s what I’m asking you to do: Have one conversation with someone who sees this election season differently.

Not to win. Not to convert. Not to prove them wrong.

To understand.

Go in with these questions:

“What matters most to you right now?”
Let them tell you what they’re protecting. What they value. What keeps them up at night.

“What are you afraid of losing?”
Fear is almost always about loss. When you know what someone fears losing, you understand their choices differently.

“What kind of future do you want for your family?”
Most of us want the same things at this level: safety, opportunity, dignity, belonging.

“When you think about the other side, what do you think they want?”
This reveals what assumptions are driving the divide. Often, it’s a story about the other side that isn’t true.

“What would need to happen for you to feel heard?”
Sometimes people just need to know that someone, anyone, is willing to listen.

“Is there anything you’re uncertain about?”
Certainty is fear pretending to be confidence. Uncertainty is the beginning of real conversation.

Then listen. Really listen. Not to respond. Not to refute. Not to find the flaw in their argument.

Listen to hear the human being in front of you.

Fear Builds Walls. Love Opens Doors.

Fear builds walls and calls it safety.

Love opens a door and risks a conversation.

We don’t need to agree on everything to find our way forward together. But we do need to stop feeding the story that the unknown person across the divide is a monster.

Because here’s the truth: Every act of dehumanization starts with silence. Every reconciliation starts with a conversation.

The world doesn’t change when we yell louder. It changes when we listen longer.

This election season, the most radical thing you can do is refuse to let fear write the story. Refuse to let distance turn a person into a category. Refuse to let your values harden into hatred.

Stand for what you believe. Fight for what matters. And then—open a door.

Talk to someone. Ask a question. Listen for the answer.

Because fear separates and love unites. And every conversation is a choice between the two.

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