Both Mayor Megan Barry and David Plazas have editorials in the Tennessean urging Americans to come together now after the election.

Barry says:

Both sides can agree it has been a divisive campaign. We could continue to find the issues that divide us and to focus on those but I believe we need to find what unites us, and whether you believe we are “Stronger Together” or you want to “Make America Great Again,” chances are you believe we’d be both stronger and greater with better infrastructure, fewer traffic jams and less congestion on morning and afternoon commutes.

Plazas says:

Now, it is up to citizens in their communities to begin the process of healing and coming together. This can be done by reaffirming our commitment to the values and freedoms endowed by the state and national constitutions, by facing each other even if we voted differently, and by having difficult, respectful conversations about how to move ahead.

To which I can only say, are you fucking kidding? The common ground between a lynch mob and its victim is the ground beneath the hanging tree. Some situations, like when one group of people is caught up in a violent frenzy, call for avoiding the common ground at all costs.

When a woman takes an electrical cord to her kid’s backside, we all recognize that the people who tell the kid he should have done what his mom wanted are dumbasses who aren’t helping the situation and who are, in fact, making it easier for the mom to continue to abuse her kid.

So, when groups of people are spray-painting racial slurs on buildings or using social media to make jokes about who gets deported and who gets sent to the oven, when men feel emboldened to grab women in the pussies, and so on and so on, can we not all agree that their ideas about how to move ahead and what unites us is a desire to get rid of people who aren’t straight, white Christians?

An important component of respect is taking someone at his or her word, looking at their actions, and believing that their words and actions are important and meaningful to them. You don’t actually respect someone if you assume that they’re lying or they don’t mean what they’re doing, because what you’re saying is that either they aren’t quite mentally fit — in other words, they can’t mean what they say or be held accountable for what they do — or that they don’t have any integrity. Both of which, obviously, are insulting and condescending positions to take. We tend not to insult or condescend to the people we respect.

So, when we have groups of people saying “Make America White Again” or “Build the Wall” or “Muslims Go Home” or whatever, the respectful position is to take them at their word, believe this is really what they want, and be appropriately wary of finding ourselves on common ground with them.