It’s not the end of the world as we know it
James wrote in the comments:
And we’re both intelligent, educated people, who have similar tastes and interests in other spheres of life.
It scares the hell out of me. There’s so much anger and hatred on both sides, and it’s getting worse and more poisonous each day. I don’t want to lose friends, or be afraid to speak up for fear of losing them. I don’t want to hate any of my fellow citizens, or have them hate me because I have the temerity to not vote the way they do.
I think that no matter how the election turns out, things will get worse, and we will see violence. Things will get progressively uglier.
I realize there wasn’t ever some mythical happy non-partisan past where everyone got along, but in the past we didn’t have the Internet and multiple news channels feeding the partisanship 24/7, poising everyone and damaging our country every single day.
I don’t think our society can survive for much longer, and I wish I believed there was any hope. But I don’t.
I don’t hate John McCain. I think he’s misguided, incurious, impulsive and reckless, but I don’t hate him. Please do not mistake my opposition to his candidacy as hatred. If the 2000 incarnation of McCain won the presidency I can in all honesty say that he would have been a great president — but his time has passed, and that man is gone. I just don’t believe that McCain has the temperament or judgment now to run the country in these dangerous times, and his foreign policy is just more of the same neoconservative nonsense that’s crushed this country in the last eight years.
I also don’t hate Sarah Palin — I think she’s unqualified to be vice president (or president) of the United States by virtue of the fact that she’s not intellectually up to the task. She has no demonstrated interest in foreign policy, for instance, and has not proven an aptitude to learn.
Heck, I don’t even hate George W. Bush — I’ve met the man, even worked with his team a couple of years back. I found them to perfectly fine and decent people, but they’re just utterly in disagreement with me on politics. And as much as I blame Bush and his followers for the state of the country today, that’s really saying something.
And you know what, I don’t hate rank and file Republicans, either.
Brief aside: back when I was in college, I met a charismatic Catholic who was completely rigid and uncompromising in his beliefs. He thought I was naive kid, utterly wrong and probably (though he never admitted it to me), a heathen or a heretic or evil. We had a lot of conversations, and they were frustrating for both of us. His inability to be friendly with me, or relate to me despite our differences taught me that I have a responsibility to strive to search for common ground with people I fundamentally disagree with, even if they don’t offer me the same basic courtesy.
Not everyone in the world will agree with you on everything — we’re all different and approach politics and life through vastly different perspectives. Why should you hate someone who disagrees with you? And why would someone hate you for disagreeing with them? I respect the rights and views of those on the right — I’ve certainly got enough friends and family who subscribe to them. The best thing to do, though, is to avoid talking about politics with those people you disagree if you begin to get angry or frustrated or sad. My mom and her sister, after some bitter political disagreements, have sworn off talking politics altogether. Their relationship is better because of it — they discuss genealogy now, family, the stuff of real life, the things they have in common.
Disagreement or political opposition does not necessarily lead to violence, either — after eight years of Bush, there have been no Weather Underground style home-grown terrorists blowing things up in opposition. And trust me, there’s millions of Americans out there who hate Bush and the GOP — and they haven’t done anything violent. The left by and large has decided that the best way to change policy is through elections — that’s why they’ve gone all in for Barack Obama, and why Obama’s team is organizing a tremendous get out the vote effort and one of the best-run presidential campaigns in the history of this country. Because the only way my side can change the country is by persuading a majority of people that we’re right — just as Reagan and George W. Bush did for the Republicans.
To James directly, your writing sounds a lot like what some of my liberal friends were writing back in 2004. There was talk of secession, apocalypse, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria. How things have changed since then! Four years ago, I was surfing Canada’s immigration site, wanting to figure out how to get out of town. Now I’m cheering on Barack Obama.
Think back to the 1861 — go back and read David Herbert Donald’s excellent biography of Abraham Lincoln to see a great examination of mid-19th century politics. It wasn’t pretty, either. Even after a civil war and the upheaval of the 1960’s, the country is still here. It will continue to be here after Bush, and McCain or Obama, or whomever. Even after the damage Bush has done to our way of life, our country still survives. It’s bruised, but it’s here.
Bipartisanship is a nice ideal, David Broder certainly writes about it infinitely in The Washington Post, but it’s not practical. There are real differences in America, and you need two political parties to give voice to those views. For a time, one party is ascendant while the other is in decline, but there’s never been a time where everyone in America agreed on everything.
It’s a pendulum, and right now it’s swinging against the Republicans. I know it can feel like there was a consensus when your side was in charge, but trust me when I tell you that a lot of us were pretty miserable over the last 8 years, and before that we had 12 years of Reagan and Bush I to enjoy. Though I was too young to know anything in those days — and better for it. A lot of Democrats thought Reagan was going to start World War III, and due to his popularity felt powerless to change it.
I understand it’s a tough time for Republicans right now — the brand is in the tank, McCain is 7-points down, and the Sarah Palin gambit failed. I’m not without sympathy for you — Al Gore and John Kerry did considerable damage to the Democratic brand, and things were in turmoil for both those elections, too. People were angry and depressed. And there are a number of us that still think that Gore was robbed the election in 2000 — even though I was not a fan of his at the time (back then, I was a supporter of Bill Bradley’s and didn’t feel like I had much of a stake in Gore v. Bush — boy, was I wrong on that score).
But things could still swing back in McCain’s favor — the race can change, and it probably will before November 4. But have faith — even if you lose, even if your worst nightmare of an Obama/Biden administration becomes a reality, life will go on. There’s more things that bind us together as a people and society than politics. And I’m not just talking about a love for Batman, or Buffy, or Supernatural, or anything like that. It’s that we’re all Americans, we all believe in the fundamentals of freedom and the founding ideals of this country.
Because trust me when I say this, I’ve lived through 8 years of my worst nightmare. And I’m still here — the country’s a mess, but I have my family and my health. You will be here at the end of an Obama or McCain administration. None of us may be here if McCain gets in, suffers a heart attack, and the keys are handed to Sarah Palin, though. In that scenario, I envision us all as radioactive dust, those of us who aren’t wandering the burned out remains of our country, trying to avoid the cannibals. In that world, only Mr. Smith and his talking roach companion remain, traveling the wasteland, righting wrongs, helping people in peril.
That was a joke.
Sort of.
Okay, maybe not.
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By James DiBenedetto, October 6, 2008 @ 6:28 am
Thank you for your very thoughtful post.
One thing that it made me realize is that I have a lot of trouble disconnecting rhetoric from reality; and holding conflicting ideas in my head simultaneously. I never could understand how two candidates could call each other (warmongers, nazis, terrorists, racists, etc) and claim that the other’s policies would, possibly deliberately (bankrupt the country, lead to the death of thousands of fellow citizens, surrender our freedoms to the communists/terrorists/whomever, etc)…and then the say after the election congratulate them and wish them well and promise to work with them.
I guess in that way I’m immature, because I can’t get my mind around it. I don’t understand how, on November 6, John McCain congratulates a dangerously naive, America-hating, terrorist-loving radical and works with him from his seat in the Senate; or, how Barack Obama goes back to his Senate seat and gives his congratulations to an out-of-touch, racist, erratic, slanderous old man and his unqualified, ignorant sidekick.
Words mean things. I feel like, you can’t just say these kind of things and then smile and shake hands at the end of the day. I guess that’s my problem, though.
I wish that more people had you attitude of: “Why should you hate someone who disagrees with you? And why would someone hate you for disagreeing with them?”
I really do wish that was more prevalent. But I don’t feel that it is. Maybe you had the right idea with taking a break and tuning out of politics as much as possible.