You are not being asked to support open borders.
You aren’t being asked to put your children in danger.
You aren’t being asked to speak a language other than English.
You aren’t being asked to stop believing in your God or worshiping that God however you want to.
It’s okay if you feel strongly that anyone who lives in the USA should come here legally. Really, it’s okay.
But you don’t have to leap from that belief, however strong, to “Deport anyone who isn’t in the USA legally.”
The reality is that deporting large numbers of people is incredibly expensive, tears families apart, and destabilizes businesses and communities. Large scale imprisonments and deportations don’t make you safer.
Take a deep breath and start learning about why people come to the USA without legal permission to do so and learn what it would take for them to come to the USA legally. Learn what happens to MOST people who come here to the USA without legal permission – you might be surprised to find out most learn English, they pay taxes, they revitalize economies and communities that were struggling and their children learn English and forget their native language. And learning all that, you still can believe that people who live in the USA should come here legally – you just might have to alter how you think about what the law should be.
It’s okay if you are struggling with people saying that a person that has male genitals is a woman, or that a person with female genitally is a man. You may never be comfortable doing that, and that’s okay. You don’t ever have to believe it in your heart and soul. Just think about how you may have changed what you call a woman when she gets married, or how you disagreed with a woman who did NOT change her name when she married. Or think about how you changed your behavior around someone who adopted a new religion. Or became a vegetarian. Or got divorced. Or maybe when any of that happened, you disengaged with that person, even a family member, because you disagreed with them about how they wanted to live their life. You can still do that. You can disengage. I won’t agree with you for that choice, but it’s your choice. But people who are transgender are not a threat to your existence.
If you love English and think everyone should speak it, then read more classic English novels, go see more productions of great American plays and donate to your local theater to produce such, learn some great English poetry, make a point of speaking correct English, and even better, teach an English as a Second Language class and help people in the USA learn English.
You don’t have to stop admiring George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Stephen Austin, and any other white male historical figure of the USA. Acknowledging their slave ownership and their promotion of slavery doesn’t completely cancel the reasons you might admire them. And learning about Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth or Ona Judge doesn’t change that the men you admire are worth admiring. Acknowledging that the stories of great black Americans have been purposely ignored and removed from our studies of history doesn’t “cancel” the traditional white American men you learn about, and that people should still learn about.
You might be shocked to know that even I don’t agree with absolutely everything I hear the most so-called progressive, most left-wing pundits promoting. Maybe I’ll change my mind. Maybe I won’t. But I’m not going to retreat into extremism when I hear something that challenges what I’ve always been told, what I’ve always believed. I’m not so insecure to be so frightened of things I disagree with that I retreat into extremism.
You are being lied to by Fox News, News Max and Joe Rogan. The people running those media channels don’t care about you, about your family or about your well-being. They likely don’t share your values – they feed you emotion-inducing disinformation to manipulate you into voting a certain way, or not voting at all.
If you are going to read the Wall Street Journal, a right-leaning but credible newspaper, also read the Daily Beast or Wired. When you hear something that gets your blood boiling, immediately work to verify if it’s true or not. Read long-form stories, not memes and posts on X.
And please engage in your community. Go volunteer with Habitat for Humanity or a local food pantry or a local youth sports league. Go to festivals and fiestas. Say “Good morning” as you pass people, or as people pass you while you are working in your yard. Civility shouldn’t be something prohibited by whatever political “side” you’re on.
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