In The Interest of Civil Debate With Other Real Americans
The other night on "The O'Reilly Factor" Bill O'Reilly and Jon Stewart were talking about Sarah Palin. When asked what he thought of the former Vice Presidential nominee, Stewart said that he is turned off by Palin's claim that there is a Real America, full of Real Americans as opposed to a less genuine America populated, apparently, by people who disagree with her.
O'Reilly responded: "You don't think there's a difference between San Francisco and Wasilla, Alaska?"
It was a big, fat meatball served up right over the plate and Stewart bunted, responding "I don't say that where you live is the deciding factor in who you are."
It's a passable answer, considering that Stewart was presumably getting these questions cold and answering off the cuff, but immediately I found myself wishing that Stewart had answered differently. I found myself wishing he had instead said, "Of course San Francisco is different from Wasilla, but that doesn't make either of those places any less 'real'."
That idea of real Americans vs. fake Americans is insulting to the people on both sides and the more we play into that line of thinking the more we feed into the cycle that we've allowed to play out for far too long. America is a big place, with lots of different people who experience life here in vastly different ways for a variety of different reasons. Why should anyone consider my way more or less real (or more importantly, more or less valid) than anyone else's? Too often we treat politics as sport where I root for my team and you root for yours while neither of us acknowledge the fact that both of them have crummy seasons now and then, sometimes simultaneously. Time and time again brand loyalty trumps critical thought on both sides of the aisle as debate devolves into attempt after attempt at proving your opponent wrong, regardless of the merits of your argument. The entire point of engaging in a dialogue is lost when the sole intent is to capture the opponent's flag. There comes a time when we have to start to question the objectives of the cheerleaders for the "us vs. them" movement.
Which brings us to the Tea Party Convention of this past weekend.
Honestly, I get the sense that the vast majority of rank and file Tea Partiers are relatively normal people, like me but with radically different ideas as to what qualifies as "good politics". Just like the vast majority of boots on the ground protestors on the left who I met during the run up to the invasion of Iraq were normal people who felt passionately about that issue. That isn't a perfect analogy, I know, but the point I want to make is that I believe the Tea Party movement was likely started with the very best of intentions. That said, I think the Party as it stands today is a dangerous powder keg of mostly racially motivated white Americans who feel disenfranchised and left behind, but that's not how it had to be. It's just what happened when Glenn Beck co-opted the movement and decided to use it to fertilize his white, male, Christian victimhood narrative. Sadly, that resonated with a lot of people, poisoning the movement as a whole and rendering it, in my opinion, unsalvageable. And I think that's a shame.
While many of those on the left have a tough time staying motivated or focused for much longer than a cup of coffee, the right has always shown an admirable knack for mobilizing their troops and staying on message, whatever that message may be. And despite the fact that I am the farthest thing from a conservative, I think the Tea Party could have been a great political outlet for those on the right who are sick and tired of the two party system. For the good of American politics I wish the left could get it together enough to do something similar to be honest.
The keynote address for the Tea Party Convention was delivered last night by Sarah Palin. Here is part of the speech that made the one of the strongest impressions on me:
"But unlike the elitists who don't want to hear this message...I've travelled across this great country and I've talked to the patriotic men and women who make up the Tea Party movement and they're good and kind and selfless and they are deeply concerned about our country...the best of America can be found in places where patriots are brave enough and free enough to be able to stand up and speak up and where small businesses grow our economy one job at a time."
While not as dangerous or outright disingenuous as much of her earlier rhetoric (death panels, anyone), this is a troubling comment nonetheless. Palin is comfortably within her political wheelhouse when stoking fires of divisiveness, and this current Tea Party incarnation is a perfect vehicle for that. But coloring her supporters as "good, kind and selfless" while at the same time leaving the listener to draw his or her own conclusions about the the make up of the opposition is just so transparent and elementary. Which is why it is so discouraging that it seems to be working so well for so many on the right (especially when the memory of being called unpatriotic for simply stating an opposition to Bush II is so fresh in minds of so many on the left). What Palin peddles is simply the next evolution of Willie Horton style cynicism and it further underscores the sad fact that there are large swaths of America that WANT to be separated from those they consider different, because in many circles "different" has been redefined to mean "inferior", many times by the people standing at the microphones in the front of the room.
Until we can find a way to respect those whom we find ourselves in opposition to politically, we can expect to see the men and women we vote in to office continue to take advantage of these manufactured chasms between us. Think of the people you know in your life - friends, co-workers, family, etc. The vast majority of these people, despite their idiosyncrasies, are decent people who want the best for their family and their country. As easy as it is to forgive a relative his political proclivities because he is someone that you love, it's twice as simple to write off a perfect stranger as a lunatic or a moron when we simultaneously refuse to consider that their beliefs are held just as passionately as ours and for all the right reasons. Despite our disagreements on what is best for our nation or how to achieve it, we're going nowhere as long as we continue to allow ourselves to be labeled by those who seek only to benefit from keeping us separated. Beyond that, it dehumanizes the opposition which just makes it easier to disregard them entirely or more dangerously, hate them all together. And once we've reached that level, productive discourse is all but an impossibility.
O'Reilly responded: "You don't think there's a difference between San Francisco and Wasilla, Alaska?"
It was a big, fat meatball served up right over the plate and Stewart bunted, responding "I don't say that where you live is the deciding factor in who you are."
It's a passable answer, considering that Stewart was presumably getting these questions cold and answering off the cuff, but immediately I found myself wishing that Stewart had answered differently. I found myself wishing he had instead said, "Of course San Francisco is different from Wasilla, but that doesn't make either of those places any less 'real'."
That idea of real Americans vs. fake Americans is insulting to the people on both sides and the more we play into that line of thinking the more we feed into the cycle that we've allowed to play out for far too long. America is a big place, with lots of different people who experience life here in vastly different ways for a variety of different reasons. Why should anyone consider my way more or less real (or more importantly, more or less valid) than anyone else's? Too often we treat politics as sport where I root for my team and you root for yours while neither of us acknowledge the fact that both of them have crummy seasons now and then, sometimes simultaneously. Time and time again brand loyalty trumps critical thought on both sides of the aisle as debate devolves into attempt after attempt at proving your opponent wrong, regardless of the merits of your argument. The entire point of engaging in a dialogue is lost when the sole intent is to capture the opponent's flag. There comes a time when we have to start to question the objectives of the cheerleaders for the "us vs. them" movement.
Which brings us to the Tea Party Convention of this past weekend.
Honestly, I get the sense that the vast majority of rank and file Tea Partiers are relatively normal people, like me but with radically different ideas as to what qualifies as "good politics". Just like the vast majority of boots on the ground protestors on the left who I met during the run up to the invasion of Iraq were normal people who felt passionately about that issue. That isn't a perfect analogy, I know, but the point I want to make is that I believe the Tea Party movement was likely started with the very best of intentions. That said, I think the Party as it stands today is a dangerous powder keg of mostly racially motivated white Americans who feel disenfranchised and left behind, but that's not how it had to be. It's just what happened when Glenn Beck co-opted the movement and decided to use it to fertilize his white, male, Christian victimhood narrative. Sadly, that resonated with a lot of people, poisoning the movement as a whole and rendering it, in my opinion, unsalvageable. And I think that's a shame.
While many of those on the left have a tough time staying motivated or focused for much longer than a cup of coffee, the right has always shown an admirable knack for mobilizing their troops and staying on message, whatever that message may be. And despite the fact that I am the farthest thing from a conservative, I think the Tea Party could have been a great political outlet for those on the right who are sick and tired of the two party system. For the good of American politics I wish the left could get it together enough to do something similar to be honest.
The keynote address for the Tea Party Convention was delivered last night by Sarah Palin. Here is part of the speech that made the one of the strongest impressions on me:
"But unlike the elitists who don't want to hear this message...I've travelled across this great country and I've talked to the patriotic men and women who make up the Tea Party movement and they're good and kind and selfless and they are deeply concerned about our country...the best of America can be found in places where patriots are brave enough and free enough to be able to stand up and speak up and where small businesses grow our economy one job at a time."
While not as dangerous or outright disingenuous as much of her earlier rhetoric (death panels, anyone), this is a troubling comment nonetheless. Palin is comfortably within her political wheelhouse when stoking fires of divisiveness, and this current Tea Party incarnation is a perfect vehicle for that. But coloring her supporters as "good, kind and selfless" while at the same time leaving the listener to draw his or her own conclusions about the the make up of the opposition is just so transparent and elementary. Which is why it is so discouraging that it seems to be working so well for so many on the right (especially when the memory of being called unpatriotic for simply stating an opposition to Bush II is so fresh in minds of so many on the left). What Palin peddles is simply the next evolution of Willie Horton style cynicism and it further underscores the sad fact that there are large swaths of America that WANT to be separated from those they consider different, because in many circles "different" has been redefined to mean "inferior", many times by the people standing at the microphones in the front of the room.
Until we can find a way to respect those whom we find ourselves in opposition to politically, we can expect to see the men and women we vote in to office continue to take advantage of these manufactured chasms between us. Think of the people you know in your life - friends, co-workers, family, etc. The vast majority of these people, despite their idiosyncrasies, are decent people who want the best for their family and their country. As easy as it is to forgive a relative his political proclivities because he is someone that you love, it's twice as simple to write off a perfect stranger as a lunatic or a moron when we simultaneously refuse to consider that their beliefs are held just as passionately as ours and for all the right reasons. Despite our disagreements on what is best for our nation or how to achieve it, we're going nowhere as long as we continue to allow ourselves to be labeled by those who seek only to benefit from keeping us separated. Beyond that, it dehumanizes the opposition which just makes it easier to disregard them entirely or more dangerously, hate them all together. And once we've reached that level, productive discourse is all but an impossibility.
posted by Demps at 8:36 AM
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