If you live in an urban area, or near a college, you might already be seeing people wearing safety pins. The Safety Pin Campaign is spreading rapidly across the country.

The pins are part of a national social advocacy campaign to protest the racist or xenophobic stereotyping or harassment of people which is said to be erupting in a number of American communities after the election of Donald Trump. The people wearing the pins are saying they will not tolerate bigotry and hatred, and also to signal persecuted people in need of help and support that they are friendly and will offer aid.

The idea of the safety campaign began in England after the Brexit campaign. The people wearing the pins were seeking to show solidarity with the frightened immigrant populations many Britons were saying should no longer be allowed into their country in great numbers, if at all.

I saw the pin a box which appeared at the Round House Cafe yesterday, and almost reflexively, I took one and put it in my pocket. Scott and Lisa Carrino are generous, tolerant and loving people, I can easily understand them putting a box like that out by the cash register. On the drive home, I put the pin on my sweater, but by the time I got home, I felt uneasy and took the pin off.

I’m not comfortable putting that pin on.

I should say in the interests of openness tha I was a supporter of Hillary Clinton and voted for her. I am sorry about her loss and troubled about the divide in the country.

But I don’t think wearing a pin will help me or anyone else.

For one thing, I think the idea of the pin is premature. This era in our political life will be long and hard, it calls for patience and perspective. If I wore a pin like that, I feel I would be widening the divide that is already so wide and divides us so painfully. I would be saying to all of the people who voted a different way from me that they are bigots or racists or xenophobes who require protection and are deserving of protest.

I am not ready to make a declaration like that, nor do I believe it is true. Most people voted their own values and consciences, just like I did, I am morally superior to no one.

If possible, the challenge is to try to break down the wall between us, not codify or set it in stone it by labeling ourselves our others.

But I am interested in the long run as well as the short, not the easy or instant statement or judgment.

I don’t wish to get ahead of myself, or ahead of anybody else, I don’t want to lock myself into a position of anger and righteousness. Wearing a safety-pin right now is just another way of saying I’m noble and decent, and you are not.

Some social activists reject the safety-pin idea of helping immigrants and African-Americans and gay or transgender people who may be targeted. They complain it is just another way for privileged people to make themselves feel better and look good without actually doing any real work to change the system.

I favor democracy over any other system I know about and have thought about it, covered it, and read about it all of my life. Our culture is a brew, constantly mixing one idea with another, and the process is ugly and chaotic. They always say it is like watching sausage being made. Ugly.

The pendulum is never still, it is always swinging back and forth.

But in just one week, a number of things have already happened, before hardly anyone had their pins on:

-A plan to deport 12 million people has suddenly melted away, now it is two or three million, and only criminals. If you have been following this story, that was already the policy under the former administration, so the bottom line is that deportation policy will not really change at all.

-The plan to ban people of the Muslim  faith from entering the United States has completely disappeared, campaign surrogates now insist it was never even considered.

-The famous big and beautiful wall is shrinking by the hour, magically transformed. Mexico isn’t inclined to pay for it, and neither is the U.S. Congress. The wall is now a mix of things – some brick, some mortar, some digital, some video, some bodies in jeeps. The new plan is securing the border, not rounding up millions of people in the night.

-You may remember the Deportation Force, to be unleashed on Inauguration Day. There is no Deportation Force, says Speaker Ryan, no plans to equip or deploy one.

-The promise to scrap the health care system entirely the first minute of the first day is shrinking even faster than the wall. Pre-existing conditions will apparently be protected, and young people will stay on their parent’s health plans. Many politicians are now hemming and hawing at the idea that they can remove health care from 20 million people just like that and not suffer dreadful consequence.

And who suggested keeping these elements to the new President?

It was the former president, who just two weeks ago called by his successor a “traitor” and “disaster.” The Democratic man is nothing if not flexible, he has the shortest memory in all of the world. They call it politician.

-The promise to investigate Hillary Clinton and throw her and her husband in jail has devolved. Hillary Clinton is now being hailed as “strong and smart” and all those shrieking and outraged surrogates are suggesting it’s time to “move on” to higher priorities. The new President, who trashed Bill Clinton as a rapist and abuser, says he will now ask his advice, he is, he says, “a good guy.” I imagine they will be playing golf together soon.

-The candidate who said he is an outsider who rejects the “establishment” just picked one of the best–known insiders in Washington to run his White House Staff. I don’t see any out-of-work steelworkers from Michigan or unemployed auto workers from Ohio headed to cabinet positions. They are all going to career politicians and think tank trolls.

-The candidate who said he would ban lobbyists from his administration and drive them from Washington has hired a platoon of lobbyists to advise him on government appointments.

And all of this in just a few days, and before the big fight has even begun..

Mencken reminds us that what really separates the politician from the average person is his or her ability to stand up, look everyone right in the eye, and lie with great bravura and confidence. Don’t, he warns, ever assume we know what they will do.

Does this mean everything is great and that there is no cause for alarm or worry?

Not in my mind, a long and hard and hopefully peaceful struggle over values is underway, it will be difficult and demanding. Politicians have a saying, you can either eat lunch or be lunch. I want to digest this all a bit.

The system is bigger than any one or two people, and clearly, they are listening too.

I am a believer in the gift of empathy, the quality practiced by Jesus and every other great spiritual leader. To be human, we must put ourselves in the shoes of others, not label ourselves to set us apart. There is a time for listening and a time for healing and, sometimes,  a time for fighting. It is not the end of the world.

When Jesus had enough, he stormed the Temple and chased the corrupt priests out. When Gandhi had enough, he marched across India and defeated the might British Army without firing a shot. When Martin Luther King had enough, he crossed a bridge and changed the course of history. When Winston Churchill seemed hopelessly defeated, he rallied the whole world with his words and won a great victory.

To the pundits and the outside world, their causes seemed hopeless. They weren’t. Hysteria and panic are failures of the imagination, they weaken the spirit and cloud the mind.

Losing an election  does not make me powerless, it might just make me empowered. I want to wait and see. We are victims of the moment we live in, it is difficult to see a future beyond the shock and confusion.

This turmoil is not equivalent, we are not all in the same boat.

Winning is different from losing, holding almost all of the power is not the same as having little of the power. Many people feel exposed and vulnerable, and if half the country can’t imagine how anyone could vote for Donald Trump, the other half seems unable to imagine why his election might be so frightening to them.

That is a staggering divide.

It is not for me to tell anyone whether or not to wear a safety-pin.  But I’m not ready to wear one, either.

For me, it’s time to let the listening begin.