So Why Am I Being So Nasty?
It’s all well and fine to say that being critical, calling out wrong doing, speaking against oppression and being rude are not necessarily impediments to love, prayer or peace. But the fact remains that I’m being particularly nasty about Trump and his election-on-a-technicality. Yes, there’s the Russian deal. And the fact that we’re in a scarier position than people want to admit (more on that later). But it’s also that I’m well aware of a dynamic described by Jonathan Chait in this weekend’s New York Magazine explaining how Democratic Senate Leader Chuck Schumer is leading the Democrats to their doom:
Voters pay little attention to legislative details, or even to Congress at all. They make decisions on the basis of how they feel about the president, not how they feel about Congress. And a major factor in their evaluation of the president is the presence or absence of partisan conflict. If a president has support from the opposition party, it tells voters he’s doing well, and they then choose to reward the president’s party down-ballot. . . The actual dynamic, then, is: Senate Democrats work with Trump → Voters conclude Trump is doing a good job → Senate Republicans and Trump win reelection or: Senate Democrats don’t work with Trump → Voters conclude Trump is doing a bad job → Senate Democrats win reelection.
I think that the election of Trump has put us in a terrible position. And we cannot afford to allow his behavior and tactics to become normalized nor can we allow him to create even the slightest perception that he is anything but dangerous without actually changing course in a way that dramatically reduces the danger he poses. (Again, more on this later.) Being civil and treating him like any other political opponent we have disagreements with will only strengthen him while neutralizing the voice of dissent as a threat.
So we need to keep yelling. We need to refuse to accept calls to peace when no peace has been sought, much less attained. We need to be down right belligerent. Because if even those who claim the man’s a danger go quiet, retreat into murmuring discontent and civility, how big a danger could he really be?
Being nice, being civil, being conciliatory and respectful are all very good things that we should strive for as much as possible. But everything has limits. As the book of Ecclesiastes famously says, there is a season for everything. And right now it’s a season of belligerent opposition. Which is why I am, and will continue to be, quite nasty about what is going on. It’s the least I can do right now.
Pass It On!
#politics #Trump #opposition #culture #dissent #currentevents