Everybody is Everybody

The world has changed since the last time I wrote. Now it’s several years later, and Donald Trump is president, and everything feels so terribly different.

In my thirty-nine years, there have been three events that shook the whole world: the fall of the Berlin wall, the fall of the twin towers on 9/11, and the election of Donald J. Trump to the American presidency. These three events, more than any others, upended things on a global scale and caused tremors that would reverberate for decades afterwards.

I hope the “decades” part won’t prove true of Trump. But it feels like since his election, something fundamental has destabilized—suddenly the news is inundated with his vindictive, divisive rhetoric and daily falsehoods, and the outrage from both the left and the right is palpable and toxic. To me and almost everyone I know, this has been a seismic shift, and a traumatic couple of years.

Things have changed in Ron’s and my world too. In 2014, I developed ulcerative colitis, a chronic autoimmune disease of the gut that would transform my life. I was still writing memoirs, and now I began blogging again as well—but rather than blogging here, about politics, I started a new blog about living with colitis. (You can read a summary of my story of illness here.)

In 2014 we also moved back to Portland, a move I’d envisioned for years to be closer to my family. So we’re no longer involved with Reach Out Wisconsin, although I’m proud to say the group is still meeting.

But I still think about civil dialogue all the time. Weekly, sometimes daily, I encounter reminders of why it’s still crucial to the health of our democracy. Again and again, politicians, pundits, and journalists lament that the country is broken because we can’t talk to each other. We’ve forgotten how to have easygoing disagreements.

That’s why I want to start this political blog back up again. I want there to be a nationwide Civility Movement, and I’ve realized this blog can be my contribution. It’s one small way I can help.

But my quest for dialogue doesn’t feel as straightforward as it once did.

Recently, Madeleine Albright was talking with Stephen Colbert about her new book, Fascism: A Warning. A few years ago, it didn’t feel as though fascism could take over America anytime soon, but alarmingly, with the rise of Trump, it now makes sense for our former secretary of state to warn us about fascism right here in this country. Whatever you think about Albright’s politics, the interview is worth watching. She’s sharp and, on this topic, she’s right.

Colbert asked her how to prevent fascism from taking over, and she said that along with being active citizens, running for office, and holding politicians accountable, it’s vital to “actually listen to people that you disagree with in a civil way.” At those words, the audience broke into spontaneous applause.

The interview inspired me, but at the same time, Albright’s instructions feel paradoxical. Under the threat of fascism, isn’t it necessary to fight harder for our freedoms and beliefs—to hold politicians and their followers accountable for injustice, corruption, and lies? How are we supposed to fight that fight and listen respectfully to the other side? What if the other side is lying, and those lies are a threat to our democracy? Should we still listen then?

I want to explore questions like that here. In the past, when I was blogging in Wisconsin, it felt so clear that civil dialogue would be a balm for the country. My intuition tells me that’s still true now. But Trump has made it clear to many of us that you can’t only be civil and kind; sometimes you need to fight. Where’s the right balance?

I want to amplify the voices of people whose wisdom provide guidance—people who find ways to foster civility without sacrificing morality. I’ll share one of those voices today.

It was the voice of Eileen Mejia, my long-lost childhood theater director. She and I recently reunited after decades of being out of touch. We first had tea a few months ago, and to our mutual delight, we discovered we both had a passion for civil dialogue. What’s more, Eileen has the expertise I sorely wanted in my leadership of Reach Out Wisconsin.

I often felt myself fumbling when co-leading that group. I always felt like I was groping my way through creating community and civility among people from every imaginable side of the political spectrum. I just didn’t have the right training.

Meanwhile, it turns out that Eileen has developed and taught full curricula on creating spaces for “conversation across difference.”

She invited me and my family to a Passover seder this month, and I was able to attend with Ron and my sister. We were honored to be the guests of Eileen and her husband, Carlos, and they helped us through the unfamiliar ritual with easygoing good cheer.

The seder involved the reading of a Haggadah, a text Eileen had written that included inspirational quotes woven into the tale of the Jewish exodus from Egypt. As the five of us took turns reading, we poured ceremonial wine and ate traditional foods like sprigs of parsley dipped in saltwater.

At a pause, I told the group that this evening was good medicine for me. I explained that I’d spent the day revamping my politics website in preparation for a relaunch, and that thinking about politics had caused a tight fist of anger to form in my chest.

In the age of President Trump, it has been a great challenge for me to remain open-hearted. I am often overcome with anger towards the president and his supporters, even when thinking about civility. The seder’s words of healing and compassion, I concluded, were opening my heart back up.

In her Haggadah, Eileen asks:

When and where are we the strangers? Who do we see as strangers?

My answer that evening was obvious: Conservatives. Republicans. Trump supporters.

Later, her Haggadah reads:

We can choose to stand against hate by centering in love…This doesn’t mean we repress our anger and fear, and allow injustice to persist. We can welcome anger and fear as signals that we need to take meaningful action. When hatefulness is being spread, we can increase our self-vigilance to make sure that our words and actions don’t add hate, but love.

Everyone at the table understood where I was coming from when I described my own anger. Yes, someone said—it’s so hard to feel compassionate towards “the Other” these days. It’s much easier, Eileen said, to simply look down on Trump supporters and to put ourselves above them. “But really,” she added, “I know I’m not better than anyone else.”

We all nodded thoughtfully, then Carlos broke the silence. “Well, you probably are a better person than Donald Trump,” he quipped. We laughed. I agreed. While I do try hard to have compassion for Trump’s voters, I have completely written the president off.

But Eileen spoke again, her voice insistent this time. “No.” She shook her head. “No. I really don’t believe that’s true. I really believe that if I were born into Donald Trump’s situation, and if I lived out his life the way it has happened to him, that I could have become exactly like him. The moment I find myself feeling superior to someone is the moment that I cease to be able to learn from them.”

These words stunned me, and they have stuck with me.

They remind me of something another wise friend once said. Years ago, at a gathering in Madison, my friend Thaís mentioned her philosophy that “Everybody is everybody.” The rest of us turned to her, curious, and asked what she meant.

She said that each of us, if born into someone else’s body and family, would have become very much like that other person. What’s more, we’re all part of the same whole, like drops of water that return eventually to the ocean. We all are each other, just in different forms. Everybody is everybody.

In the days since the seder, I keep returning to Eileen’s and Thaís’s words. I also believe Madeleine Albright is right—that fascism is a real danger, that we must work hard to prevent it, that we must fight it. I believe Donald Trump is unfit to be president and that his supporters are in the wrong.

But at the same time, Eileen’s statement opened a crack for me, like a shaft of light illuminating darkness. Perhaps, in this fight, there is room for loving-kindness as well.