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This political climate seems like it could easily be a side effect of global warming if I didn’t understand science better than that. The United States has been a pressure cooker for a while, but maybe not as much as it is right now. Sure, there’s no Civil War brewing, no matter what media hacks might try to say. But there’s a huge divide in perspective between the right and the left.
Before I go further and you write me off as a far left liberal snowflake (although none of those words offend me), you should know that I started my trajectory firmly on the right. I grew up on the right. I know the arguments, the lingo, and even the particular passion of that side of the political aisle. I’m not a stranger to it, and I actually understand it.
You might be wondering what happened—either shaking your head that it’s a damn shame, nodding your head because you’ve been there too, or waiting to see how I finally came to my senses. It depends entirely on your own political orientation.
But it’s easy to explain. I grew up. I went to college. I decided to start deciding for myself what I believed by investigating both sides of the argument. I went from a primarily white, middle-class area to towns with more diversity. I listened.
During this time, I took classes on philosophy, psychology, world history, statistics, and culture. Instead of holding fast to the way I had been told to think, I decided to look at the big picture and decide what I believed based on all of the perspectives given—not just my own limited experience. This isn’t to say the left is right, and the right is wrong. This isn’t a condemnation of people who identify as conservative. I’m just telling you in order to convey that I have been on both sides, and I can see both sides still.
But what I’m seeing on social media and among friends is an inability for each side to see the perspective of the other. After all, it’s easier to simply decide that we’re right and to turn the other side into the enemy. I discuss this in more detail in my article, “How to Create a Monster.” There’s not a real dialogue, even when some people like to hold fake ones.
I can give a great example of this. A social media “friend” made a post about how people need to be civil when discussing politics. Many, many people chimed in. I pointed out that when issues of social justice are at stake, oppressed persons do not have to show civility to oppressors. If we don’t personally feel an urgency, we may be protected by privilege. Those whose lives are directly impacted by policy changes have every right to be impassioned.
What was interesting about her post is that she put a positive comment on every supporter of the current administration and argued with anyone who reminded her that the President she supports has been far from civil in his discourse. Examples were given—direct quotes, video clips, and years of compiled evidence showing that the current president has not held himself to a standard of civility and has instead played the part of a playground bully with anyone who he sees as his opposition. This has included members of his own political party. With each example, she revealed her ignorance about most of the issues cited and continued to insist that communication should always be respectful.
I can agree, to an extent, about that. But as I read more of her posts regarding this matter, she resorted to the very name-calling she was repudiating and championing friends who also used that sort of language. When some of her friends got tired of this behavior and blocked her, she posted publicly about that as well—calling names and acting as though other people don’t have the right to remove her if they feel that they aren’t being treated respectfully. This was hypocrisy at its finest: demanding that people be civil to you when you aren’t behaving this way toward them.
It was fine for her to call names if someone didn’t react in the way she liked, even if their comments had been civil. It wasn’t okay for people to criticize the current administration. Her agenda wasn’t to promote civility in political discourse; her agenda was clearly to discourage people from expressing a dissenting opinion.
She’s hardly the only person I know to do this, and I’m sure there are people on the left side of the aisle who have done the same thing. My friend list is pretty evenly divided among the left, right, and center, and anyone who knows me has a pretty good idea of where I fall on the spectrum because I advocate for my belief systems. But I also have the perspective to understand the other side, an effort I don’t always see happening when political views clash.
People are preaching to the choir, posting to people who feel the same, and when someone offers a dissenting opinion, we too often listen only enough to prepare our own arguments rather than trying to understand where people are coming from and why it means so much to them. We’re not bridging the divide because we’re too busy trying to light up the whole damn bridge to burn it down.
All presidents and political leaders should come under the same scrutiny and be held to the same standard. Our loyalty should be to our country and democracy and not to a political party. We should be able to acknowledge and address the flaws of our own candidates without deflection or denial.
But more than that, we need to understand research. We need to understand how to find sources that aren’t known for bias. We need to be open to finding out that our opinions don’t align with actual facts and then also be open to adjusting those opinions accordingly rather than trying to adjust the facts. We need to call out our political leaders when they do something that’s wrong (i.e., name calling and not conducting themselves with the dignity of the office). We need to apply our values to all leaders and not just the ones we prefer.
And we need to stop expecting oppressed groups of people to behave according to our rules of civility when oppression isn’t civil. Nothing about oppressing others is civil, and to demand that they be respectful is just adding insult to injury. Instead of demanding that they show us respect (whether or not we show any respect in turn), we would be better served to listen to their experiences—not to dispute or invalidate them, but to understand how we all live in the same world but don’t all have the same life experiences.
This lack of understanding has made for the political divide. It’s not Obama’s fault. It’s not even Trump’s, although his behavior has been a global embarrassment (i.e., name-calling, midnight Twitter rants, rabble-rousing during speeches). We refuse to understand each other, and because we won’t understand, we’re not able to find common ground to create the common sense laws that can come from that.
Considering that the numbers show that most Americans don’t even vote, it’s interesting that everyone seems to have an opinion about the state of our country without doing the work to participate. No, posts on social media don’t count as doing the work. It’s so much easier to complain about people disrespecting each other rather than do the work ourselves to start understanding the other side and opening up discussions rather than arguments.
Or, better than discussions, let’s start opening up dialogue about how to solve the problems that are present. There is a middle ground on most issues, but some people act as though it contains a minefield. We just don’t approach it. But if we came at politics from the perspective of understanding both sides and trying to reach an understanding for common sense laws, we might actually be able to move forward together.
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This post was originally published on medium.com, and is republished here with the author’s permission.
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Photo credit: James Pond on Unsplash