With the Election Behind Us, Let’s Reject Contempt | Opinion

Two years ago, my organization, the Dignity Index, issued a warning to our country: Our national addiction to dehumanizing contempt had reached a point at which the future of the country was at stake. Contempt, not policy differences, our data suggested, is tearing us apart. Contempt is tearing our families apart, contributing to our mental health crisis, rupturing trust between people of differing political parties, and creating a dangerous spiral toward splitting the country in two.
Nothing has changed after Donald Trump’s sweeping victory in this month’s election. And nothing would have changed if Kamala Harris had won. As President Barack Obama noted, “Elections have consequences.” One glaring consequence of the 2024 election is that our wounded relationships and deeply damaged trust in each other are more in need of healing than ever before. Elections create winners and losers, but they don’t ease contempt or restore relationships. If anything, they risk making tensions worse as the losing side descends into anger and despair while the winning side plots a course toward domination.
Now that the election is over, we desperately need a dignity strategy that can ease our national crisis of contempt. We need a deescalation of contempt and an increase in dignity in how we treat each other. This is our nation’s most urgent priority.
Both parties would advance their self interest by reducing contempt for the other side. Treating Democrats with dignity is the only way for Republican leaders to heal the country they’re now leading. Treating Republicans with dignity is the only way for Democratic leaders to advance the issues they hold dear. Both sides are skeptical of each other, but that doesn’t mean they don’t need each other. They do.
More importantly, America does too. Rampant contempt has torn apart families and friendships. Our mental health is precarious; last month, election anxiety was listed by the American Psychological Association as the number-one cause of mental distress—and it’s not going to get better as we become more isolated from one another. Our churches, houses of worship, and civic organizations—all of which have formed the backbone of community life, social connection, and service throughout our history—are struggling due to the evisceration of trust brought on by the culture of outrage and contempt.
A dignity strategy isn’t for one side or the other. We’ve all been a part of the culture of contempt and we can each do our part to end it. No one has to abandon their political principles or tone down their passions to reduce contempt. We all have to do just one thing: Treat each other with dignity while we advocate for what we believe in most.
Practically, this isn’t as hard as it seems. Since Governor Kevin Stitt of Oklahoma has committed to leading his state with greater dignity and less contempt, both he and his constituents have held him to it by scoring him on the “Dignity Index.” The Dignity Index takes contempt from a vague concept to a quantitative score and offers an objective tool to rank ourselves on a scale from one (“they’re not even human”) to eight (“we treat everyone with dignity—no matter what”). With bipartisan, third-party tools such as the Dignity Index, we can hold our leaders accountable and ask our leaders to hold us accountable too.
Educators are also taking this challenge seriously. In schools from Massachusetts to Connecticut to Oklahoma to Utah, educators are teaching new lessons that help children learn how to reduce contempt and use more dignity when they’re in conflict. Some start with teaching children that when a conflict starts, it helps to stay calm and “turtle:” draw yourself into your “shell,” take three deep breaths, and tell yourself you can handle the situation. That one skill alone helps children treat each other with dignity and get better outcomes too. There’s no reason adults can’t learn to do the same.
Reducing contempt may be practical, but it won’t be easy. Many American women feel wounded by election results that leave them wondering whether our country values the leadership of women. Treating them with dignity is the work of both political parties and will require both listening and changing. Similarly, millions of working-class Americans feel that the country doesn’t hear their voices or help them solve their problems. Treating them with dignity is also the work of both political parties and the powerful people who lead them. We need change for them too.
Those groups are not alone—almost all of us are anxious and worried about the future, including those whose candidate won this election cycle. In a culture of contempt, even winning a presidential election is a shallow, temporary victory. Long-term solutions will continue to elude us as long as we villainize the other party. But meaningful change is possible if we can learn to work together. It starts with dignity.
Dignity is not just a job for president-elect Donald Trump or a new Senate leader or other elected officials; dignity is a job for all of us. And now that the election is over, dignity is job number one. Let’s start a campaign for that!
Tim Shriver is the chairman of Special Olympics; founder of UNITE, an initiative to promote national unity; and co-creator of the Dignity Index.
The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.