This article was published in The Labor Press, IBEW 48, in the 3rd-quarter of 2017.
On June 8 of this year, John Hodgkinson carried an SKS rifle and 9mm handgun to a baseball field in Alexandria, VA, asked an attendant whether those practicing were Republican or Democrat. Having heard they were Republican, he walked onto the field and opened fire, shooting four people and critically wounding Congressman Steve Scalise.
Hodgkinson acted alone, did not belong to a terrorist organization and was an avid supporter of progressive presidential candidate, Bernie Sanders. Among his anti-Republican Tweets, he opined that Trump is a traitor who destroyed American democracy and that it was, in his words, "Time to Destroy Trump & Co.
Long-time talk show host Dennis Prager, drew criticism for comparing America’s political divide to a civil war. A man of the Right with a flair for fear mongering, he warned listeners “If the Left wins, America loses. And if America loses, evil will engulf the world.” He went on to remind his audience that the goal of a conservative is to vanquish leftism. Not to talk it off the ledge or to compromise with it for the sake of the country; but to destroy it.
There’s Rob Reiner, who informs followers that Trump’s presidency threatens the very fabric of American government – democracy. Two years ago at a Labor conference I sat dumbfounded as a guest speaker and political candidate celebrated the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who had the temerity of being the speaker’s political opposite.
What is it about politics that brings out the virulent (murder in the name of political ideology), the extreme (democracy is doomed!), and the creepy (applauding the death of a political opponent)? Why do Americans seem to hate each other based on political ideology, and why is it that political disagreement is not just disagreement, but all-out war? Are you a progressive who hates Republicans? Are you a conservative who thinks progressives deserve not just defeat, but contempt?
If this is you, allow me to walk you back from the ledge. Politics in America need not be so dramatic or extreme. Moreover, if you keep the following in mind, you will be well on your way to a drama-free political life. Politics is not war or a life-and-death struggle between good and evil. Contrary to what many think, on both Right and Left, the political arena is not a battlefield where arms are taken up to snuff out adversaries; it is not a place where the means you use to achieve victory are justified by your opponent’s utter annihilation.
There is no reason our politics cannot involve reasonable, well-informed people working out disagreements. In fact, of all features of American life, spirited, well-reasoned debate may best embody the spirit of our democratic experiment.
One’s support of a flat tax doesn’t make him evil any more than does my support of a progressive income tax make me a saint (I don’t, and I am not). The debate over single-payer vs. multiplayer health insurance – as contentious as it is – is no struggle between good and evil, but a complex debate about which is best equipped to provide health insurance, the government or the private sector. How one decides on school vouchers, despise them as you may, isn’t a litmus test of a legislator’s purity of heart, but a proposed legislation that questions the definition of public funding for education. These are political issues.
I do not like Right-to-Work legislation, and I hope it does not pass in any form. I believe it invites government meddling between employer and employee, and I question the motives of some of its supporters. However, I do not think it, or those who endorse it, should be silenced or are worthy of contempt. My job is to engage them in debate and show them the flaws in their proposal and the strengths of my own. But I do not hate them. They are wrong about workers’ right and their legislation stinks. Period.
If you have wondered why those on either side of the political divide do not talk to one another (so much as they do at one another), it is because both sides have forgotten that in America politics thrives on disagreement. Not the disagreement popular on social media, virulent and unaccountable, but the kind that builds coalitions between parties and joins hands across aisles.
If you think your political opposite is evil, you needn’t engage him beyond what it takes to stamp him out. If this is your attitude, it won’t be long before you are left angry, narrow-minded, and ineffectual. However, if you want to be winsome and you desire our country to thrive, have the courage to converse with your political opposite. And, by all means, reserve calling “evil” what is really evil.