65
Trump’s voters? Condemn them or work to better
understand them? After all, I had long cared about
people trapped in urban and rural poverty. Should I
stop trying to alleviate suffering in both red counties
and blue cities to focus instead on discrediting 45?
Ultimately, I decided to stick to the principles
I’d learned in the pre-Trump era and keep work-
ing across ideological lines. I’m glad I did. In re-
cent years, left-right alliances have passed justice -
reform bills in several states.
In December 2018, Presi-
dent Trump signed the First
Step Act, a bipartisan mea-
sure making rehabilitation
(rather than mere punish-
ment) the federal prison
system’s goal. The bill has
already accelerated freedom
for more than 5,000 people.
Trump deserves more credit for rallying the GOP
to break D.C.’s long-standing logjam on this issue.
That win expanded hope and made prison reform
safer ground for both parties.
But criminal-justice reform isn’t the only issue
where working together can lead to results. Just last
year we saw another example of a bottom-up move-
ment that secured a bipartisan win when sick, re-
tired coal miners led a grassroots movement thatpersuaded congressional leaders in both parties to
save their pensions and health care.
There are at least three other areas where Ameri-
cans could make similar progress.
Start with addiction. When the face of addiction
was black, our government saw addiction as a crime,
not a disease. Thirty years ago, America shamefully
filled its prisons with young men of color. Today, as
the body count has risen in whiter parts of the in-
dustrial heartland and Appalachia, the public rhet-
oric has been more sympathetic. But progress has
been too slow. There remains great wisdom in urban
America about how to respond compassionately and
effectively to people trapped by drugs. Sadly, rural
white leaders have not yet had the good sense (or
national contacts) to reach out to black America for
help. And black, brown and urban leaders have not
yet had the heart (or bandwidth) to offer it. But a
rural-urban alliance to fully decriminalize addiction
would have great appeal and power.
Then there’s mental health. There is a homi-
cide crisis in urban America, and too many African
Americans and Latinos have attended too many
funerals and buried too many sons and daughters.
Meanwhile, there is a suicide crisis in suburban and
rural America, with rates skyrocketing, especially
among young women and older whites. And too
many of our veterans, abandoned after a generation
of war, face PTSD and other diagnoses without the
support they need. These vets are as likely to come from inner-city De-
troit as rural Georgia. This trauma needs treatment on a mass scale, and a
stronger blue-red alliance is waiting to be formed.
Finally, there’s intergenerational poverty—from Appalachia to
the ’hood. The truth is that there is no such thing as a liberals-only or
conservatives- only solution to entrenched poverty. Low-wealth commu-
nities need government intervention through some combination of so-
cial programs, tax credits and Opportunity Zones. But to benefit from
these measures and succeed, an individual also needs the traditionally
conservative personal values of hard work and
thrift. Real solutions require both social and per-
sonal responsibility.
In other words, we need each other. To up-
lift those whom Jesus called “the least of these,”
we don’t have to convert or annihilate each other.
Liberals can stay liberal; conservatives can stay
conservative.
Liberals fight for social justice, while small-
government conservatives fight for liberty. Both
traditions are necessary for America to have liberty and justice for all.
To end the food fight at the top of our political parties, we need strong
partisans at the bottom working together. Bottom-up bipartisanship can
solve the problems that top-down bipartisanship created. Common pain
at the grassroots level can lead to common purpose, common ground and
commonsense solutions. Even now.Jones is the CEO of the REFORM Alliance and author of Beyond the
Messy Truth: How We Came Apart, How We Come TogetherDon’t call people out
when disagreements
arise. Try calling
them up to a higher
commitmentUWR.Jones.indd 65 3/24/20 10:45 PM