TRUMP AND THE VIRUS
Wishing COVID-19 on no one
Frequent readers might be aware that I loathe Donald Trump.
Loathe him like a three-sailing wait, sidewalk dog crap, or that moment when you discover — the hard way — that someone has dropped a cigarette butt in your beer. Loathe him like Nickelback with Brad Marchand on lead vocals.
This has nothing to do with Trump’s political leanings, and everything to do with his character. I once described him as “vain, bellicose, mean, ill-informed, racist and a truth-twister with the integrity of a $4 umbrella … who treats women as though they’re inflatable.” And that was before he was elected.
So, yes, when the president tested positive, it was tempting to gloat gleefully and look up the spelling of schadenfreude.
Tempting, but wrong. What kind of a jerk exults in someone getting COVID-19? How far into the weeds must we get lost before stopping to check the moral compass?
It’s something to think of as B.C.’s provincial election, the list of candidates finally set as of Friday, begins in earnest. Can we get through this without demonizing those with whom we disagree?
No, probably not, given that vilifying politicians was a thing long before our passions were further inflamed by a pandemic. More than 20 years ago, I asked Preston Manning why his Reform Party attracted so many — in my words — crackpot candidates. “Because negative guys like you stop good people from running,” he shot back, or something to that effect.
He was right. Who wants to enter public life when it’s like playing goal for the darts team, an open door to a kind of casually inflicted abuse that no one else is expected to tolerate?
In 2016, a cardboard cutout of then-premier Rachel Notley’s face was used as a target at an oil industry golf tournament in Alberta. In 2019, an Edmonton election lawn sign placed crosshairs over Justin Trudeau’s face. Someone once hanged the mayor of Metchosin in effigy, for heaven’s sake.
I once heard a story about a radio host who caught hell after asking listeners: “Where’s Lee Harvey Oswald now that we really need him?” I can’t recall which president was in office at the time, but does it matter?
How would you react if he were referring to Trump? Obama? Trudeau? Harper? Rule of thumb: If it’s offensive when it’s said about your team’s guy, then it’s offensive when aimed at theirs.
A few years ago, B.C.’s James Hoggan wrote a book called I’m Right And You’re An Idiot: The Toxic State of Public Discourse And How to Clean It Up. It spoke about how we have lost the ability to respectfully disagree with one another, and instead feel compelled to attack the integrity and motives of those whose beliefs we don’t like.
OK, but what do you do about someone like Trump, where his character really is a big part of the issue? Even Hoggan felt that temptation to gloat after the president tested positive. “It’s not like I’m the Dalai Lama,” he said Friday, on the phone from New Westminster.
Trump, he says, is “basically all the things your parents told you that you should never be.”
That creates a challenge. It’s easy to have a cordial relationship with someone when you have opposing but honestly held beliefs. It’s harder when the opponent is in the “mischief business,” intentionally misleading people to stir them up, Hoggan says.
“The way dishonest discourse works is not only through the manipulation of facts but more through its ability to polarize people.” It stokes fear, anger and division. It tribalizes people. Trump is a master at that. “He drives people to light their hair on fire.”
The key to responding, Hoggan says, is being careful — even when you know you are right — not to further the divisions by wielding your facts as weapons. The objective should be to foster people’s understanding of the truth, not punish them with it.
Also, while fretting about Trump’s flaws, it’s worth keeping an eye on our own. Be kind, be calm, be safe, even at election time.
And no wishing COVID-19 on anybody.