By Roshan Jayasinghe
The people of the United States have made their choices in these midterm elections, each person voting from within the circumstances of their own life, with their own surroundings, experiences, concerns, and hopes for what comes next. Those choices were never going to be the same. What brings reassurance to one person may bring uncertainty to another. The numbers determine who is elected to represent everyone, but the people whose choices did not prevail remain part of the country. Their wishes deserve attention and care.
For some, hope meant voting for change. For others, it meant holding on to something they valued, resisting a direction they did not trust, or seeking greater control over their own lives. People may have looked at the same country and seen very different needs, with greater openness towards different races, cultures, and genders mattering most to some, and familiar traditions, community, security, or the freedom to live according to their beliefs mattering most to others. These concerns do not divide neatly along party lines, and a vote alone cannot explain everything about the person who cast it. Each choice carries a different understanding of what a better life might be.
Behind those choices are wishes that are familiar across our differences: work that allows a person to live decently, a home they can afford, opportunities for their children, care when they are unwell, or a little peace as they grow older. Yet even where aspirations meet, people may disagree deeply about how to fulfil them. Respecting one another means making room to hear those differences, while remembering that our wish to live on our own terms exists alongside the same wish in someone else. Those elected have accepted a responsibility to serve people across that whole range of hopes, including those who did not choose them.
Our human continuum carries on beyond the election. This morning my neighbourhood looks the same as it did before the vote, with people going about their daily lives. We may never know how everyone around us voted, but we will continue to meet in workplaces, at public gatherings, and in sports arenas, and to live beside one another, sharing the consequences of decisions made on our behalf. The discussions will go on, and so will the desperation and the hope. Togetherness has to find a place within those ordinary encounters, even when agreement does not.
The systems we have created to organise our lives must leave room for everyone. We belong to one human race, living through different circumstances, each of us with a need to be heard and a wish for a life of dignity. Hopefully, those entrusted to lead will remember this when the celebrations are over and the daily work begins. Hopefully, party politics will be for the people, all people, with their differing aspirations and their place in our shared life.
“An election counts our differences. The responsibility that follows is to care for the lives on every side of those numbers.” -Roshan Jayasinghe
