America's Political Knot ( or, "I May Have Punched Him, It's a Blur, Sir")

With six or so weeks until election day, the righteous indignation is flowing through America nearly as thickly as the self-righteousness. I oppose both impulses, though I’m probably immune to neither. I can admit that, even if I’m not proud of it.

That said, I get it. The country seems tied up in knots, the issues unprecedentedly thorny, the stakes extraordinarily high. The loudest voices are the rawest, the ugliest, the most snide. I’ve watched and read and listened and thought. And although I don’t expect to persuade anybody — being persuadable is wrongly understood by some as a liability these days, and anyhow, this blog reaches a pretty paltry audience — I need to put thoughts to paper to free up space in my brain to focus on other things, like palindromes. A nut for a jar of tuna.

Vote, man.

I’ll state up front where I sit: I’m decidedly unimpressed with the United States’ president (to really sugarcoat it), and I agree with very little that the president’s political party has come to stand for over the past decade or so. Nevertheless, I accept that Mr Trump is still the valid President of the United States, whether or not you or I like him.

Yet America is definitely scuffling — it’s hotly debated whether the blame rests with progressives for bloating government with wasteful programs, levying burdensome taxes that disincentivize work and innovation, and ripping up the moral fabric from which early Americans allegedly wove real American-ness, or with conservatives for celebrating, or at least turning a blind eye to, white nationalist populism, rejecting facts, knowledge, and expertise in favor of intentional political incorrectness, and gleefully cheering as Mr Trump — their bull in a china shop — tries to obliterate generations of political and social norms, institutions, and practices.

I don’t intend to address the substance of that debate. Rather, putting aside whether President Trump is a savior or a disease, I simply observe that Americans now live in a country rent with internal divisions over everything from whether guns kill us or make us safer to whether facts even exist. How did we get here?

I think that issues that used to be debatable have become quasi-religious doctrine — and some, for the political Right at least, are, in fact, actually understood as religious doctrine. Climate change, abortion, gun rights, immigration, foreign aid, environmental protection are all held by many as moral imperatives. Perhaps they are. I’m not suggesting they are or are not. But I am pointing out that it’s exceedingly hard to accept any form of compromise, anything less than full and complete political conquest, on something one regards as morally or religiously sacrosanct.

In other words, we’ve allowed American politics to devolve into a zero sum contest. Victory for you is necessarily defeat for me. My triumph has to be your tragedy. Democracy falls apart under such conditions. Democratic politics — correctly practiced — rest on the idea that political outcomes can and should be positive sum results in which each party gains something.

But it’s hard for us to get there when your disagreeing with me on a point of politics, culture, or society is akin to an unpardonable sin. Many of us are probably aware of conservatives hurling around statements like, “Anyone who supports abortion kills babies and is just plain evil. I can’t have anything to do with them.” Or progressives insisting that, “If you support Trump you don’t care about anyone besides yourself, so I don’t respect you and I don’t want any contact with you.”

My sense is that these attitudes are far more menacing to the health and prosperity of the American republic than abortion, guns, climate change, racism, taxation, poverty, or any other social ill I can think of. Why? Because if we maintain the ability to engage with one another, we can make progress toward solutions. If we isolate ourselves within real and online communities of the like-minded, we can’t solve anything.

I had a conversation recently with a good family member with political and social views vastly different from my own. We disagreed, but we refrained from talking over one another, listened actively, and expressed ourselves respectfully. I even heard myself say a few times, “I suppose you’re right about that.” At another point, this family member surprised me by indicating that they support DACA, despite their heavily conservative political views, because, in this family member’s words, “I know people whose lives would be ruined if they were forced back to Mexico.”

There’s something powerful there. When you know and engage with people who are different than you, who believe differently than you do, you expand and stretch, you understand more. It’s hard for that to happen if we wall ourselves off — either literally or figuratively — from those with alternate social or political values. It’s hard to grow and learn when we too liberally use labels like “evil” or “stupid” when what we actually mean is, “that person is coming at this issue from some other angle than I am.”

Far from being some kumbaya call for peace and love, I’m increasingly certain that appeals for graciousness, fairness, and civility in the public sphere represent the baseline for actual progress in the United States. Some disagree, and I get that.

I can see how resisting calls to address climate change can be understood as deadly to the health and welfare of many, many people. I understand how favoring extending the reach of the federal government can be viewed as supporting activity that compromises the livelihoods of many living in rural areas. And I certainly perceive how approval of, or even indifference towards, racial insensitivity, discrimination, and much, much worse cannot be seen as anything remotely acceptable in any form.

So I understand those who insist that the stakes are too high for compromise, that political consessions only signal weakness and encourage political enemies, that the redemption or preservation of the soul of America depends on one tribe’s victory over the other.

But I suggest that no tribe can truly win anything worth having — however righteous a thing may be — if victory is obtained by brute force over the angry protests of those being trampled.

The reason? Even the most worthy ends cannot be maintained long-term in a democratic society without reasonably widespread buy-in, and ramming virtue down the throats of the unwilling has never yielded buy-in. Persuasion, on the other hand, can little by little, over time, mollify, pacify, and conciliate. Unfortunately, our present political and social culture casts malleability as a handicap. How do we square the circle?

I’d suggest we must collectively recapture ethics of fairness and graciousness in the public sphere and tolerate and constructively engage with unsavory and even despicable political positions, as counterintuitive as it may feel. Doing so acknowledges humanness in the Other and recognizes the Other’s inherent sense of dignity. This is an initial step toward a climate of civil discourse.

We should also recognize that democracy requires losers as well as winners. In a country of 350 million people, it’s inevitable that many won’t get all they hope for from any given political contest. Sadly, some groups are beginning to assert that the only way they could possibly lose a ballot is if a secret, sinister cabal steals their inevitable victory.

If factions are unwilling to accept democratic results of an imperfect but still largely dependable vote, it won’t matter who sits on the Supreme Court or controls the White House. America will simply remain mired in political trench warfare, lurching from one spasm of political bloodletting to another with actual ground being neither won nor lost. “Refuse to Lose” is a fantastic sports slogan, but it’s antithetical to democracy.

So be civic-minded. Consume news critically and intentionally. Regularly sample sources across the political spectrum. Understand what socialism actually is before you declare it the religion of the vast and diverse Democratic party. Learn about the political and civil society institutions of the United States before you advocate and support tearing them down — I have been to a lot of places around the world and I’d suggest that America doesn’t need to be destroyed and rebuilt to be amazing; it already is, warts and all.

Believe in the overall integrity of the democratic process and accept the results of free and fair elections, despite encouragement from certain national authorities to reject unfavorable election results per se — nothing is perfect, but our voting system is really quite reliable. Regularly contact your representatives, pushing them to end harmful and anti-democratic practices like gerrymandering. Reduce the amount of time you spend online and devote your time saved to learning about, and possibly pushing forward, real remedies to some of America’s political ills: an amendment to abolish the electoral college, rank-order voting, etc.

With a little effort, I’m confident anyone can see that most people are just people, neither menacing nor evil nor foolish, nor bent on destroying anyone else’s favored way of life. Yes, tiny pockets of Americans are deranged and drunk on rage, and probably also on liquor. They can’t be engaged or reasoned with, so they should be ignored. Look for the good outside your own tribe, or, better yet, emancipate yourself from tribes and evaluate people, platforms, and planks on their actual merits. You may just make a difference.