I'm Sad That I'm Not Surprised

    I was all set. A nice, humorous piece on the differences between Adams vs. Jefferson, and Biden vs. Trump. I even had a reverse piece of art that was the antithesis of that "Ascent of Man" picture where it starts with a chimpanzee and then has four other evolutionary figures getting more upright until it ends with modern man. I found one that was the exact opposite! Anyway...maybe another time. It seemed inappropriate given the current circumstances. 

    I don't need to bore anyone with a summary of the attempted assassination of a former President of the United States, who is also a current candidate for that office. I'm just getting a few things off my chest; which is really what this website is about, anyway. Having typed that, while I was shocked it happened...I'm not surprised, and that saddens me. Are we getting what we deserve? I mean, part of me is a little shocked that bullets hadn't started flying before this. We've got a man (and I'm going to do my best not to be snarky from here on in) who insisted on claiming that the previous election was stolen from him by the current guy in the Oval Office, and hasn't shut up about it since that defeat back in 2020. There was no evidence, mind you. There was just a verbal onslaught about it, day after day after day to anyone who would listen. Now, the guy who won (and supposedly stole the aforementioned election) never seems to let an opportunity go by without comparing his opponent, favorably, to Adolf Hitler. And now, there are serious and legitimate concerns about his mental acuity and his ability to continue serving as Commander-in-Chief. These are their starting points. And whatever you think about Donald Trump, he's not Hitler. And whatever you think about Joseph Biden, he doesn't have a grand plan to ruin America and turn is into a fourth-world country.

    So, where does that leave the rest of us? Well, to be fair..there's a lot of blame to go around. You can't find a news or social media outlet that doesn't have at least a couple of talking heads salivating at the prospect of a politics of enmity and blood. And trust me, these just aren't the crazies. These are usually sober-minded people with thousands of followers and serious money behind them. These new "respectable classes" of people or pundits, or whatever, are presenting politics in "existential" terms, and they simply leave out the "destroy your enemy at all costs" as an unspoken implication. You see what I mean? Politics is currently war for everybody. Now we've got an assassination attempt to amp up the temperature and the deranged ones actually start driving the bus. 

    So a lot of people, on both sides, are now talking about...sort of...lowering the temperature, like it's a thermostat that can be tweaked. What does that mean? I have no idea. A photo-op on Capitol Hill, or an agreement not to engage in "fascist" or "Hitler" talk? That doesn't sound serious. It's like saying we'll fix education by throwing more money at it; or getting rid of racism by saying "Can't we all just get along." I think that it isn't just the rhetoric, no matter how crazy it gets, but where the rhetoric comes from. It almost seems embedded in how politics works now. 

    But the weird thing is that the yelling and screaming isn't about issues like it has been in the past. Whether it was isolationism, race, poverty, Watergate, Vietnam, whatever...there were plenty of issues that got people fired up, and rightly so. But now it's just political...Life! Really? I mean, on paper, our society is not one that should be seething with hatred. The poorer classes aren't seething with hatred; I don't think there's a religious war coming any time soon. You know what I mean? It's not a race or class thing. It's a "What kind of American are you?" thing. What's you identity? And from where I sit...that's not good.

    These new arguments aren't feeding off ancient social tensions. They are creating new ones. New identities and communities...and a separateness that I don't think would necessarily happen on their own.  And in doing so, it calls to the worst in human nature. It doesn't give us a chance, or should I say the culture a chance, to deal with these issues in a natural way. And no amount of calls for some half-hearted unity from politicians, or press releases from whoever are going to help either. It's going to require serious thought from serious people about our current politics and how it can change. 

    The one thing the serious thought process will have to deal with is why so many people seem to have given themselves entirely over to politics. Why do so many of us find a quasi-spiritual fulfillment in it, such that they can only see it in truly existential terms? These are the types of people who are incapable of turning down the temperature. They are incapable of being defined by anything other than their politics. It's frightening. You know them, and you know who you are. You can't pick up your phone or tablet without searching for the latest idiotic thing some politician did or said. And especially if it's Messrs. Trump or Biden, who do and say stupid things all the time, you get to feel morally superior to everyone else (at least in your eyes). Trust me, just like all of you, I have them in my family, as well. 

    Let's be honest, every facet of society is political, now. Community meetings, churches, college campuses, bathroom policies, library collections at primary schools are all now matters of national debate. I've talked to a number of my pastor friends who lament that their churches (or congregations) are increasingly understood by political markers instead of spiritual ones. Which, in turn, is causing a huge exodus of ministers from their churches. And that goes for the individual, as well. We're all being identified and understood in terms of political "identity" markers instead of just individual human beings. These markers have been forged in partisan, sometimes ugly, debate. And these people doing the identifying feel that EVERYTHING they love is at stake in national political conflicts. Trust me. This is NOT what the Founding Fathers wanted. 

    Then there is the oft-observed distrust in institutions. It seems to me that many Americans have no confidence in their constitution, laws, and political institutions either to perform the specific function they traditionally fulfill or to properly form and restrain the individuals operating within them. And one can’t understand the distrust in our political institutions without realizing that it is well-earned: The powers of Congress, the courts, and most obviously the presidency and its frighteningly huge executive administration have been routinely misused, getting far away from their core purpose and eroding any limits. It's little wonder so many people reach for irrational hope in parties, movements, and persons of whatever ideological brand that promises to purify things from the ground up. Can anyone say, "Charlatans"?

    Look, I firmly believe that paranoid conspiracists (the Fox Mulders of the world) are wrong to suggest that every part of life is being controlled and dominated by this or that nefarious group. But the power at stake and the corresponding mentality of public officials give these people more than enough reason for their craziness. We don’t live in a repressed dystopia like Orwell's 1984. We retain many freedoms so valuable that they are taken for granted. And our Constitution and traditions provide us with remarkable resources for reviving a healthy form of civil life.

    Yet we do increasingly seem to be in the midst of a widening storm put into motion specifically by our manner of political practice. For the “temperature” to be turned down, it's gonna take more than rhetoric. It would require a different way of thinking about and engaging with fellow citizens, one in which people don’t feel that every aspect of their life, even their very personal identity, is on the line every four years in a winner-take-all battle. It would require a citizenry open—perhaps out of exhaustion—to moderation. And it would require a wise and far-sighted statesmanship that seems nowhere in sight.

    All that might just mean it’s impossible. But if we truly want a healthier civic culture, it will require a change that goes way beyond words. Because we need to do something. It's getting out of hand. 

write to Peter: magtour@icloud.com