Turning toward each other is challenging.
In my last post, I wrote about our need to “turn toward” each other after the election, no matter who won. Now Biden has won, and for that I am so grateful—I believe American democracy will be far stronger under him than under Trump.
But for all of us on both sides of politics, our work is far from over. Not only must we ensure a peaceful transition and turn our attention to the Georgia Senate races, but we also must do the internal, interpersonal work of healing our divided country.
I promise I’ll return to my series on racism soon. But right now, I want to say more about turning toward, because it’s very challenging. You have to let go of your ego, consider that the other side might have valid points, and communicate your messages without vitriol. It takes lots and lots and lots of practice.
Far easier is turning away, or turning on, each other. I’ve seen many responses to this election that fit those descriptions, and I want to detail them so readers can recognize and avoid them. Although they are all quite natural, they all take the easy way out—they are ways we avoid the harder work of turning toward.
1. Fixating on the perceived corruption of the other party.
Corruption is a real problem in many cases, and weeding it out is vital. However, if we fixate on what we see as the other side’s corruption, we take the easy way out by conveniently ignoring their valid points.
After Bush v. Gore in 2000, many on the left felt George W. Bush had used the Supreme Court to steal that year’s election—and that may or may not have been true. But by calling Bush illegitimate, progressives could too easily ignore the fact that nearly half the country had legitimately voted for him. That made it too easy to avoid learning why they had.
After Trump’s election in 2016, progressives were similarly outraged by factors like Russian interference and James Comey’s October announcement of Hillary’s “corruption.” Again, this outrage may have been valid—but again, by fixating on it, too many of us conveniently overlooked those who had voted for Trump. Not all of them were duped. By assuming they had been, we avoided working to fully understand Trump voters.
Republicans’ 2020 concerns about voter fraud, and Trump’s false claims that it’s widespread, similarly allow conservatives to ignore the reasons so many people voted for Biden. The reality is, a slight majority does vote Democrat—Trump’s loss is legitimate. But by fixating on perceived fraud, the right can avoid doing the harder work of learning why progressives vote the way we do.
Not all claims of corruption are equally valid, and the valid ones are absolutely worth fighting against. This month in particular, it’s paramount to call the president on his lies about fraud and “election stealing.”
But doing only that work, staying always in the “us vs. them” mentality, and overlooking the harder work of listening to the other side, is taking the easy way out. Corruption is not the only reason for the other side’s victories.
2. Fantasizing about revolution, secession, or civil war.
Some anarchists break windows to bring down the capitalist oppressor; some right-wingers amass arsenals of AK-47s to prepare for civil war; both sides fantasize about secession. All these scenarios are frankly ludicrous. To me, they’re evidence of our privilege as people who live in a peaceful country—we’ve forgotten how precious peace is.
I seriously doubt that anyone who’s lived through an actual civil war would fantasize about any of this.
It’s simpler and easier to imagine breaking away from the other side than to challenge ourselves by turning toward them and listening. But the hard work of “turning towards” is worthwhile in order to keep the peace.
This is the country we have. These are the people we share it with.
3. Writing off all Trump voters as racist.
Many progressives felt filled with despair and bitterness last week over the fact that so many people voted for Trump despite what they perceive as his racism and other forms of bigotry. Is everyone who supports him really so callous?
Having taken the time to listen to conservatives about why they support Trump and how they feel about racism, I’m convinced that it’s not that simple. Here are a few reasons I don’t think their support for him is as racist as we assume:
- Most Americans are apolitical. They’re preoccupied with family and work, and especially if they’re white, they’re only distantly aware of, say, police killings of unarmed black people. This is passivity and overwhelm, but it’s not racism.
- We exist in different media and social media universes. When they do watch the news, Trump voters are more likely to see news that portrays racism very differently from how it’s portrayed to us. We’re not seeing the same news and reacting to it differently; we’re seeing different news.
- While racism is a top issue for many progressives, it’s not for many conservatives (white or otherwise). This may mean they care about it less than us—but it also means that to them, a vote for Trump was not a referendum on his racism. Their Trump votes weren’t about racism; they were about other issues, like the economy.
- Many conservatives do care about racism, but they approach it very differently from us. Conservatism emphasizes personal responsibility on many issues, including poverty, mask-wearing, and gun ownership. That same emphasis holds true for racism. This isn’t because they necessarily care less about people of color, but because they believe in a different strategy for uplifting people of color.
- Many people of color voted for Trump. His base is not all racist, uneducated white people; a small but significant minority of Black and brown Americans voted for him. Support for him actually grew among Black men in the last four years. This ought to tell us that there’s more to the story than we realize.
There are definitely racist Trump voters, and others who are apathetic about racism. But not all Trump voters fit these descriptions. Turning towards them and taking the time to listen, it becomes clear there is more nuance here.
That gives me hope. Half the country is not as awful as it’s tempting to think; many of them just see things differently.
4. Writing off all Biden voters as socialist.
“Socialism” is the most common epithet I see attached to progressives by the right. This is their side’s big fear about us. They think our well-meaning but naïve policies will lead the country into an economic nightmare akin to Soviet Russia or modern-day Venezuela.
But again, cries of “socialism” are the easy way out. If they would instead turn toward us, they would discover that most progressives want a social democracy, not socialism—something like Canada’s or Finland’s system, which are capitalist. (In socialism, the government owns businesses; in capitalism, they’re privately owned, allowing for competition.)
The far left has unfortunately muddied the waters on this issue, with social democrats like Bernie falsely labeling themselves “socialist.” Far-right pundits like Ben Shapiro and countless others have gleefully built straw-man arguments around the label, without bothering to listen and learn what it truly means to the people using it—and without recognizing Biden’s stance as a moderate. All of that is the easy way out.
5. Deciding to just “beat” the other side.
If the blue tsunami had happened this year, I’m belatedly realizing that that, too, would have given us an easy way out—at least in the short term.
We could have swept the presidency and both houses of Congress. It’s possible we’ll wind up with control of the Senate after some runoff elections, but it’s not super likely, and if it happens it will be by a razor-thin margin. We don’t have the mandate we’d hoped for to barrel ahead with our progressive agenda, perhaps enacting electoral reforms or universal health care. With more solid control, we could have forced Republicans to stand by helplessly, staging walkouts and rallying their base for 2022.
Instead, this will likely be harder. If we want to get anything done in the next two years, we’ll probably have to actually work together. And I wonder if, in the long run, that might be a good thing.
Seek nuance and humility, not the “easy way out.”
Sometimes I feel as though I have two minds. One is the tribal, “us vs. them” mindset. I’ve had that mindset for much of the election. This side of me just wants victory—it wants to crush the other side and humble them in the process.
But my other mind is what President Lincoln called the “better angels of our nature.” This is a mindset with a gentler, broader view that’s more able to see nuance. It recognizes when I’m taking the easy way out, writing off the other side as corrupt or racist and seeing them as monolithic.
Because this second mindset is gentler, it’s not always very loud. My tribal mind is full of righteousness and big emotions, and those come easily to the fore, so that I often feel them first. But one of the keys in turning toward each other is learning to listen to our better angels. I’m learning to notice when my gentler mind feels I’m straying from compassionate, nuanced thinking.
I hope this post will help others to recognize some of their own tribal, “easy way out” habits as well, so that more often, we will turn toward each other instead.
