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Leave the hate and anger behind in 2017, Holmberg says

Posted at 9:35 PM, Dec 28, 2017
and last updated 2017-12-28 23:01:45-05

RICHMOND, Va. -- Man, what in the world happened to us in 2017?

Wow. One bitter screaming match after another.

The year that we tried to out-hate hate and made a total mess of it. A costly deadly mess - and we kept doing it!

A year of confrontational and controversial presidential tweets that nicely reflect what we do to each other on social media a hundred, a thousand times a day.

A year of the usual fires and floods and the first hurricane in half a generation that we treated like the end of the world.

It was one of the most prosperous years in this nation’s history and yet we filled it with fear and loathing and anger.

Mark Holmberg

Mark Holmberg

Because we are so powerfully divided and seem to believe that this is somehow new.

But the divide between liberals and conservatives here and elsewhere is more than 200 years old. The Whigs and the Tories. The Civil War.

We are so equally divided now. Look at all the elections - small and large - that end up like a coin toss that lands on the edge.

And we don’t even know that that’s a great thing!

Too much liberalism will bankrupt us.

Too much conservatism will brutalize us.

We need this balance.

Because then we have to work together to build our roads and schools and keep our world turning.

The people who disagree with us are not monsters that need to be slain.

They are decent people. Friends. Family. Fellow citizens. The are our opposite number.

The vast majority of us are decent people who look after each other, including those we disagree with. We’ll be ok.

But we have to leave this hatred, bitterness, distrust and dishonesty behind in 2017.

I don’t believe we can survive another year like this.

Divided we stand. United in hate we fall.

Watch for Holmberg's Take Thursdays on CBS 6 News at 11 p.m. and on WTVR.com. 

Watch for Holmberg's Take Thursdays on CBS 6 News at 11 p.m. and on WTVR.com.

Watch for Holmberg's Take Thursdays on CBS 6 News at 11 p.m. and on WTVR.com.