Honestly, we could all use a little more Mister Rogers in our lives right now

In a time when we feel more divided than ever, it’s no wonder so many are looking to the lessons of Mister Rogers to show us how to move forward. And that’s a good thing.

Personally, I’m almost always up for talking about Fred Rogers and the impact that Mister Rogers Neighborhood has had on multiple generations of children — or is still having today; heck, my niece loves the Land of Make Believe! He taught us all important life lessons, he modeled what being a good person could mean in the lives of others and he changed television as we understand it. A flawed man who nevertheless did great things, he is an example of kindness in action, a beacon of the good we can be in the lives of those around us.

Mister Rogers Neighborhood went off the air in August 2001, and Rogers himself passed away in 2003. Yet, he and the show he left behind feels more relevant than ever before right now, with our divided citizenry, partisan politics, and the general spirit of unkindness that seems to have seeped into almost every facet of our daily life.

Though we can debate the reasons for this ad nauseam — and some of the culprits are deeply obvious – the problem seems fairly straightforward: We’ve forgotten how to be the people Mister Rogers always saw in us.

In the wake of the dueling election town halls between President Donald Trump and Vice President Joe Biden, Mister Rogers was a surprising trending topic, after a Trump advisor likened Biden’s appearance on ABC to an episode of Mister Rogers Neighborhood. Now, again, personally, I’m not sure how this was precisely supposed to be an insulting statement since Rogers’ show was famous for being warm, kind, educational, and accepting of everyone who came to visit. Not a bad thing to be remembered for, if you ask me.

In theory, one has to assume that senior advisor Mercedes Schlapp meant to draw a distinction between the tone of the two events: One was quieter, more thoughtful, less antagonistic. The other was certainly more combative and contained more attention-grabbing comments and headlines.  (We’ll let you guess which one was which.)

But in the Twitter storm that came in the aftermath of this moment, one thing seemed very clear: Too many people have forgotten the lessons we learned in the Neighborhood, all those years ago. It’s part of the reason we’re in this mess we’re in right now.

We’ve forgotten what it means to be kind, to care about people we might not ever meet.

Isn’t that the issue at the heart of so much of the ongoing U.S. debate about whether or not to wear masks in public? (FYI: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and multiple independent studies all say masks are effective at slowing the spread of COVID-19 and can help save lives.) Isn’t that the reason that Twitter, Facebook, and most of the comment sections of the internet have become such toxic cesspools of horror?

What would Mister Rogers think of us, if he could see how we act now?

We certainly aren’t being the people he thought we were. The people he knew we could be.

It seems — and really, it is, probably — incredibly simplistic to say that we can solve the world’s problems by just being nicer to one another. By listening to others, or opening our arms and doors to those who aren’t like us. But, isn’t that also kind of the answer? Or, at least, a fairly decent and immediate way to mitigate some of the harm in the world right now.

I’m not saying that everyone needs to spend some time before Election Day watching old episodes of Mister Rogers Neighborhood – but I’m also not not saying that, if that makes sense.

We have to be better. We have to do better. We have to expect better of ourselves before we can ever ask better of one another, or the people who represent us.

We have to be the people Mister Rogers knew we could be, if we want to build a better world.