We should be better at political discourse
As we have learned, there are no walls between facts and rhetoric
The reader’s email was the first of many to arrive early that morning.
“Jerry, I find it amusing you mock a President who has engineered a booming economy, soaring stock market, lowest levels of unemployment for Asians, Blacks and Latinos, destroyed ISIS, passed the largest tax cut in decades, and stands in stark contrast to the wack job socialists running on the other side.”
“In essence, you are mocking success,” the email continued. “Which only a feeble minded partisan hack of a … journalist would do. Columns like yours will ensure Trump is re-elected in 2020. Perhaps when he’s reelected, you can keep mocking him. And we’ll read your columns and mock you for being so wrong. CS”
I replied with an attempt at the high road.
“CS, I love this email from you, and your insights. Thanks and I hope you’re right about Trump,” I replied.
“Well I’m touched by that gesture,” CS wrote back. “Brings a tear to my eye. Most elitist condescending liberal columnists won’t even debate me so I appreciate you at least having some (guts).”
“I don’t care about personalities. We had a great one in Obama. I care about policies and results… See I don’t (care) if Trump is an (expletive). I grew up in NYC. I know exactly who he is. He’s a buffoon, egomaniac, arrogant and abrasive man. And his policies are GREAT for America. And that’s all that matters.”
“Add that to your follow up column. Can’t wait be mocked. I’ll wear it as a badge of honor,” CS wrote.
“No mocking of you,” I replied. “We simply have different descriptions of the word ‘great.’ ” CS couldn’t let it end there. “You never answered the question Jerry. Which of the current policies put forth by Democratic/ Socialist presidential candidates do you support? Do you think those policy proposals put forth are better than Trump’s policies… which have led to all the good things going on today? Be honest with yourself Jerry.”
I replied, “I don’t support any of them. My hope is that our current president could act more
presidential while installing his policies, reminding the world of our country’s true greatness. It’s not in the policies. It’s in the people, like you, who sincerely give a damn about our nation, not about politics, power and rhetoric.”
CS replied: “It’s up to the people to support the right policies for the nation… and demonizing those on the left who support Socialism is a great thing. You’re such a coward if you use the cop out ‘I’m not educated enough to understand them.’ WTF does that mean? YES YOU ARE. The left is telling you they want a Socialist utopia. Wake the (expletive) up and do your job. Goodness gracious you’re a wet noodle.”
Shaking my head back and forth, I replied: “And you’re an under-educated blowhard who thinks he knows all the answers regardless of the obvious complexity or inevitable fluidity. And here we are back at square one, labeling each other via email. Welcome to America in 2019.”
Have you had similar online or face-to-face chats with people who disagree with your national politics? It seems impossible to hold a conversation without presidential politics polluting it. And anger erupting from it.
“Anger is an addiction and we’ve become a nation of addicts,” singer-songwriter Paul Simon said in 2017.
This is so true.
But if we take a broader view of our country, even for a moment, we might see we’re angry about the same shortcomings in life. Unfortunately, we’ve been duped into being angry toward the same villain — each other, whether we’re liberal or conservative, left or right, pro-Trump or antiTrump.
As I’ve written since he was elected into office, Trump is only a manifestation of one aspect of us. Our “extremely stable genius” of a president will serve his time in the White House and, eventually, will return to civilian life.
And we will be left with the fallout of his term(s), alongside each other, cleaning up the mess.
It’s a political tug-of-war with tight-fisted titans on both sides of the proverbial rope, yet we’re the ones who keep getting dragged into the muddy middle.
It’s imperative to remember this: The only thing that matters to people with power is to retain that power. Period. The same goes for people with wealth and privilege. The “status quo” is not a derogatory cultural descriptor for these people. It’s something to be defended at all cost.
This is Humanity 101. Always has been. Even in the 21st century. Especially in the 21st century.
As most Americans with no power and no wealth squabble about the social issues of the day — for instance, a “most annoying student” award, or Fair Oak Farms animal abuse allegations, or the endless abortion debate — Americans with true power and wealth are nailing down the status quo with a power drill. The rest of us, though, can’t hear it over the constant noise of us yelling at each other.
“Are we so easily swayed?” asked Christine Grygiel, a reader from Naperville, Ill., who contacted me the same day.
“Perhaps on a deeper level, Donald Trump acts as a figurehead who legitimizes his followers’ anger by providing a very public and high-ranking voice to their resentments and fears,” she wrote. “To quote Winston Churchill: ‘ Never does a man portray his character more vividly than when proclaiming the character of another.’ ”
“Never before have we witnessed on a daily basis the purposeful chaos, outright slandering of others’ characters, continuous bragging and flaunting of fabricated achievements, and gross manipulations of so-called facts on such a grand scale,” she wrote.
As we have learned with this administration, there are no border walls between facts and rhetoric. Or between anger and civility. We should be better than this. Apparently, we are not.