Excerpt from The New York Times
Written by Glenn Beck
In a recent speech to a group of conservatives, I made what I thought was a relatively uncontroversial point about the commonalities between Trump supporters and Black Lives Matter activists. I thought this was a simple idea, but the criticism was immediate and sharp: How dare I try to understand the “other side”?
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But as people, wouldn’t we all benefit from trying to empathize with people we disagree with?
I consider myself a “classical liberal” — a.k.a. “constitutional conservative” — and I believe the greatness of our country lies in our founders’ creation of a system that allows and encourages all voices to be heard. The only way for our society to work is for each of us to respect the views of others, and even try to understand and empathize with one another. I have always tried to work toward this goal, even though I have often been guilty of conflating the individual with the whole.