Can we talk? Apparently not, it’s too risky. If I’m on one side and you’re on the other side of the political spectrum, it’s too explosive to talk about our differing views.
Why is that?
We don’t want to hear it. We don’t want to hear our side put down, nor do we want to hear anything good said about the opposing side.
We also don’t want to look dumb and stupid for the views that we hold or for believing what we believe. We don’t want to risk being out argued; fact is, we know what we know, believe what we believe, and that’s that!—no matter how good the other side may argue their point.
Another reason is that it’s just too emotionally draining. The other side makes us so angry, irritating us to no end. We wonder why they can’t see what we see. We’re frustrated at what appears to be nothing less than self-imposed blindness on their part, resulting in what we see as willful ignorance and stubborn stupidity. And so it is emotionally exhausting and taxes every ounce of whatever patience we may think we have.
Another reason is that we may literally lose friends and gain enemies because of our political differences. “Them there words are fighting words; take back what you said!” There are many on the right who can’t stand those on the left and vice-versa.
And finally, though not final, there is no room for and no respect for those in the middle, for those who may see the good as well as the bad of both sides of the political spectrum.
And that is a core problem for us. So for example, few people on the right are willing to see Hillary Clinton as anything less than a witch on a broomstick. And few people on the left are willing to see Donald Trump as anything less than a conceited egotistical trickster that would be laughable if not pitiable if he were not so dangerous, given his position.
We’ve lost the ability to respect people of opposing views. We resort to the total vilification of the opposing side. Furthermore, we no longer see the idea of “working together” as an honorable and valuable approach to partisan politics. We now consider such cooperation between opposing sides as weak and traitorous. We leave ourselves with no room for negotiation.
This can change. WE can change this. But we have to own that this is where we are and embrace the desire to do better than this.
Yet, I don’t see that happening. We are failing to keep this nation balanced and inclusive. We are unwilling to back down from our extreme positions and our extreme demands of the other. The way in which the Senate recently handled the Gorsuch nominee for the Supreme Court position is a blatant and sad example of this failure of ours.
And it is OUR failure, the failure of a nation and its people and the peoples’ representatives. We are sliding downward as a nation in the way we operate as a democracy. It will be years before we see and actually experience the consequences of this downward trend and its terrible effects upon this nation, but they will come. But for the present, we are just too full of ourselves to notice how badly we are actually behaving.
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