What frustrates me isn't your argument. I think you're right. But "those people" aren't abstractions for me. They're family. People I grew up with, people I love, who I've watched hand themselves over to con men who figured out, like LBJ said, that if you give a man somebody to look down on, he'll empty his pockets for you.
The arrogance I feel when I nod along to a piece like this, that's what I have to keep checking. Not because the argument is wrong, but because being right and feeling superior aren't the same thing, and I'm not always sure which one is driving me.
What I'm certain of: I'm more sad than angry. And I'm tired of pretending I'm neither.
I wouldn't encourage you to pretend. In fact, I'd recommend the opposite.
Everyone, including me, has lost people in these divisive times. But at some points of history, that parting is necessary to keep one's moral compass intact.
Let's posit that someone you have known for many years, and who has been important to you tells you that he has just signed up for training as an ICE agent. He goes on to tell you that he's proud to be helping to get the "criminal illegals" to stop "poisoning the blood of our country, and that the protesters murdered in Minneapolis "had it coming."
What do you say?
If you say you're glad he has found a job that supports his sense of purpose, he goes away thinking that you approve of his decision, that you will support what he does, or at least his part in it.
If you say that you disagree, but that won't change how you feel about him or treat him, then he goes away affirmed in your regard, and that regardless of what he does while "just following orders," he will continue to enjoy your social support. You are, indirectly, encouraging his decision.
But if you screw your courage to the sticking place, you say, "You are joining a junta that violates the law with impunity, murders protestors, and supports a criminal regime. I can neither support your decision, nor accept your actions." Then you walk away and shun him like you would anyone who announced to you that they intend to participate in violent crimes against innocent people.
This is not a disagreement over preferences, or even politics. It is a fundamental moral divide. Trumpism is a monstrous movement. They murder people from Minneapolis to Teheran, and then brag and justify their actions publicly. They openly advocate discrimination against racial minorities, women and queer people. They defy the law, engage in breathtaking levels of public corruption, and attempt at every opportunity to destroy democratic institutions and subvert the rule of law. None of this is secret, none of it is even debatable, it is all over the public record like a livid stain - like feces on the wall, and policemen's blood on the floor of the Capitol. Anyone who would support this, for whatever reason, is inhabiting a moral universe that I will not share.
We are taught that we shouldn't believe that we are "better than" anyone else. But here is the unavoidable question. Jose, if we aren't trying to be morally and intellectually better than people who lie, cheat, steal, oppress and even kill, what are we trying to be?
What frustrates me isn't your argument. I think you're right. But "those people" aren't abstractions for me. They're family. People I grew up with, people I love, who I've watched hand themselves over to con men who figured out, like LBJ said, that if you give a man somebody to look down on, he'll empty his pockets for you.
The arrogance I feel when I nod along to a piece like this, that's what I have to keep checking. Not because the argument is wrong, but because being right and feeling superior aren't the same thing, and I'm not always sure which one is driving me.
What I'm certain of: I'm more sad than angry. And I'm tired of pretending I'm neither.
I wouldn't encourage you to pretend. In fact, I'd recommend the opposite.
Everyone, including me, has lost people in these divisive times. But at some points of history, that parting is necessary to keep one's moral compass intact.
Let's posit that someone you have known for many years, and who has been important to you tells you that he has just signed up for training as an ICE agent. He goes on to tell you that he's proud to be helping to get the "criminal illegals" to stop "poisoning the blood of our country, and that the protesters murdered in Minneapolis "had it coming."
What do you say?
If you say you're glad he has found a job that supports his sense of purpose, he goes away thinking that you approve of his decision, that you will support what he does, or at least his part in it.
If you say that you disagree, but that won't change how you feel about him or treat him, then he goes away affirmed in your regard, and that regardless of what he does while "just following orders," he will continue to enjoy your social support. You are, indirectly, encouraging his decision.
But if you screw your courage to the sticking place, you say, "You are joining a junta that violates the law with impunity, murders protestors, and supports a criminal regime. I can neither support your decision, nor accept your actions." Then you walk away and shun him like you would anyone who announced to you that they intend to participate in violent crimes against innocent people.
This is not a disagreement over preferences, or even politics. It is a fundamental moral divide. Trumpism is a monstrous movement. They murder people from Minneapolis to Teheran, and then brag and justify their actions publicly. They openly advocate discrimination against racial minorities, women and queer people. They defy the law, engage in breathtaking levels of public corruption, and attempt at every opportunity to destroy democratic institutions and subvert the rule of law. None of this is secret, none of it is even debatable, it is all over the public record like a livid stain - like feces on the wall, and policemen's blood on the floor of the Capitol. Anyone who would support this, for whatever reason, is inhabiting a moral universe that I will not share.
We are taught that we shouldn't believe that we are "better than" anyone else. But here is the unavoidable question. Jose, if we aren't trying to be morally and intellectually better than people who lie, cheat, steal, oppress and even kill, what are we trying to be?