Kindness Will Win In The End
Americans are in pain. Many of us feel betrayed.
We grew up with stories—Disney movies, Aesop’s fables, the Bible—that promised the good guys would win. That truth matters. That kindness will triumph.
And right now, it feels like those promises were a lie.
But I want to tell you something important: they weren’t.
Yes, Walt Disney himself had some dark associations—he sympathized with Nazis and participated in antisemitic organizations. Some of that may have been the water he swam in, the culture of his time. It’s a significant personal failing, but does not obviate the content of the stories his company told.
Those stories—the ones that touched our hearts—they weren’t lies. They were aspirations.
Aspirations that have lasted because they speak to something real.
Look at the big theme of the Bible—not the fire and brimstone passages selectively quoted by those who need fear to feel powerful—but the Beatitudes. “Blessed are the merciful.” “Blessed are the peacemakers.”
Soldiers show up in riot gear and fire rubber bullets into crowds of unarmed protesters. That’s cowardice. That’s unmanly. That’s far beneath us as Americans.
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.” Those are the real heroes. They’re the ones being shot at.
This message has lasted for over two thousand years. It was taught to us through Disney and other American myths like Superman and Star Trek. It’s still with us, and will always be with us, because it is aspirational.
Spreading hate, bullying the defenseless and spreading lies to justify it all is not. All that is decay, deceit. It’s a disgrace for our country and for humanity as a whole.
Aspirations are completely different. If you’ve ever seen animals help each other, or bonobos playing joyfully, or children laughing, or a person doing a good deed, you’ve seen something real. Something instructive. Something hopeful.
The universe is an interplay of cooperation.
Even in our own bodies, cells work together to keep us alive. Even in ecosystems, competition is not the rule—interdependence is. The leader of the wolf pack isn’t a bully. He’s a leader. The queen bee doesn’t hoard everything. She makes sure all the bees are okay.
That’s what we forgot. And that’s what the fearmongers hope we’ll never remember.
The Trump movement has only one message: be afraid. Fox News has been fabricating stories to create fear for decades. Trump is the result.
During the campaign, we were told that foreign governments were emptying their prisons and sending criminals to America as immigrants. Is ICE rounding up all these criminals? No. They can’t round them up because they don’t exist. But ICE has to look tough. So they bash in the door of some mother and cart her away instead.
Trump and Fox News say, “Be afraid! Someone is coming to take what you have. The only thing worth having is money. There’s not enough for everyone, so be afraid.”
They say there isn’t enough, but there is.
They say we have to fight to survive, but we don’t.
They create hierarchies so people feel afraid. So they can control us. They want us to believe we are alone. But we’re not. We’re connected. We’ve always been connected.
The old fables and the Beatitudes were telling the truth. "Even the smallest act of kindness can make a difference."
In Disney’s Escape to Witch Mountain the villain tries to capture gifted, empathic children to use their power for evil. Just the same, there are forces today trying to weaponize our best traits: our empathy, our creativity, our desire to do good. All of those reasons are trotted out as justifications for the Administration's power grabs and police state bullying.
But they won’t succeed. Liars never do, in the end. Believe it because it is true.
There may be some who need constant conflict to feel alive. There may be kids raised in broken systems who believe they’re owed a six-figure life just for showing up. But that’s not the world we have to live in.
We can choose a different path.
We can be like the bonobos, the wolves, the bees. We can look at Maslow’s hierarchy and realize: once our basic needs are met, the true work of life is to love, to create, to be in connection.
We don’t need to dominate. We don’t need to fear.
We need each other. It may be frightening to think we’re alone in the universe—but even if we are, then that makes our kindness, our creativity, our solidarity all the more miraculous.
We’re not just here to survive. We’re here to build something beautiful.
Kindness will win in the end. It always has. If it hadn’t, we would have destroyed ourselves centuries ago. Kindness will prevail again. We were not betrayed. But we are being tested.
If this resonates with you, or if you’re looking for ways to stay grounded, hopeful, and connected during this turbulent time, let’s talk. You’re not alone.
#Kindness #Hope #Democracy #Connection #LinkedInVoices #Leadership #MentalHealth #Empathy #PoliticalCrisis #StorytellingForChange
