Recently, a friend gave me the book “A Stronger Kinship” by historian Anna-Lisa Cox. It tells of Covert, Michigan, a small town 30 miles from my friend’s childhood home. 

His nearly all-white high school had played them in sports, yet only now was he learning that more than a century ago, Black and white residents of Covert had “lived as equal citizens,” as the book puts it. 

Millions of Texans lost power when our electrical grid buckled to Arctic storms so cold, they froze our gas pipelines, nuclear water pumps and wind generators. Instead of tackling the problem, we blamed each other.

Politicians across the nation immediately sprang into partisan form, some Democrats blaming Texans for our longtime oil and gas leadership, some Republicans denigrating our thriving wind and solar power infrastructure.

Following years of polarization and the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, the world’s oldest constitutional democracy is in grave danger. We stand at a crossroads, called to protect this democracy and to work toward unity. Current and future generations will look back to examine how we chose to act, and why.

“The president has been clear to all of us — words matter, tone matters and civility matters,” said Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary.

Days after President Biden took office, the Bureau of Land Management put a scenic landscape of a winding river at the top of its website, which during the previous administration had featured a photograph of a huge wall of coal.

Disagreement is a human constant. Sometimes it even proves productive. But lately, disagreements between residents of the 50 United States seem different. Less tractable. More dangerous and anxiety-inducing.

Are these feelings justified? Or are they distorted by emerging trends, like flame-fueling news media, self-righteousness on social networking platforms and a frequency to accept information as fact without critical assessment?

With our current political leaders, we live in a divided nation. It may be easier to be closed-minded on political and cultural views, but it will ultimately do more harm.

We can transform the tide of rising rancor, deepening division and increasing isolation into a wave of respect, connection and belonging.

America is crying out in pain. A pandemic marked by physical distancing sparked hope of social solidarity across differences that have increasingly defined us. Yet now our hearts and streets burn with rage over injustice, callousness and cruelty.

As has become the norm, a recent Hollywood award show ignited a partisan divide in reactions and news coverage from throughout the political spectrum. But buried under the hyperpolarized noise was a positive theme that many people missed — a call to find common ground.

You’ve probably heard some version of it in recent years. Maybe you’ve even said or thought it yourself. “Politicians are always fighting!” “Politics has become totally irrational!” “Why can’t politicians just compromise, find some consensus and solve our problems?”

For many people, these views have come to seem like basic common sense. In this era of extreme partisanship, the argument goes, what we need is more unity and moderation to bring us together. And if there is one group of politicians who have been blamed for the sorry state we find ourselves in, it is populists.