Pogo Was Wrong

            Walt Kelly’s wise possum once affirmed, “I have met the enemy and he is us.” A sensible cautionary statement, to be sure, but not one for our times.  I have met the enemy, and he isn’t us – he’s them.  Why am I feeling so dogmatic?  Because for the first time I actually was in an online  (or actual, for that matter) conversation with Trump supporters.  Not only that, these supporters were professionals in the field of mediation and conflict resolution, gathered to discuss the recent election and how to hold difficult conversations.

            The leaders, two highly respected members of the field, spoke about the ugly rhetoric of the campaign and about their personal fears of the coming administration. Both noted their Jewishness, and one described himself as a direct descent of Holocaust victims and survivors.  Each of the first half dozen cited recent political statements that made them fearful for their own well-being or for that of others in the United States.

            Then two new voices entered the conversation.  They were both white men, one seemingly a southwestern non-Hispanic Christian, and the other a northeastern Catholic with a legal education.  The first noted that he too had had fears, not only in this election, but also during the Clinton and Obama administrations.  What fears?  Abortion, he said, and the teaching of moral relativism to his children in the public schools.  The first is, of course, an issue on which there can be principled difference, but did he think that abortion rights would be expanded if a Democrat held the White House? For the second, I wondered what grounds there could be for fearing that a Democratic administration would assert control over the ethical teaching content of public education, (I imagine there would be some connection to gender and sexual orientation issues, but if so, that was not stated.)

            The second new voice was the only person in the group to speak as if lecturing the assembled listeners.  His main points were:

1.     That the phrase climate change deniers echoed the term Holocaust deniers, which upset him. He began talking about the distinction between natural and anthropogenic climate change.  He did not explain what he feared from a Democratic administration pursuing concern about climate change.

2.     That everyone has fears, and fears are fears – surely a reasonable statement for a therapist, mediator, parent, etc., but hardly a claim that should foreclose discussion about the validity and significance of fears in the public arena.

3.     He then made his one statement of a personal fear: too much power in the Executive Branch, which he attributed to the Obama administration’s overreach.  Unfortunately in a webinar you can’t catch the moderator’s attention and try to make an observation (We were plodding through a list of speakers that had been created at the very beginning of the question period, and no one that failed to make that instant list ever got to speak.)

I have to admit, that at that point I was lost in incomprehension.  First, I thought, if there was a danger in concentration of power, wouldn’t control by one party of the Executive, both branches of the Legislative, and very likely the Judiciary, be a far worse danger than Presidential overreach?  Second, wasn’t it clear from the past eight years that the Congress had the tools it needed to balance the Executive?  The Dream Act, TPP, single-payer health insurance, suspension of deportation actions, and a liberal-leaning Supreme Court had all been blocked.

            What struck me most about these speakers was their clear assumption that their fears, which for the most part seemed to be that someone else might be able to do something (marry, have an abortion, or whatever unspoken “moral” fears they might have), or about a fairly abstract level of political concern, was more important to them than the concrete fears of others about what might be done to people like them.

            The conversation, and particularly the false equivalency of fears, put me in mind of some dialogue from a recent Cable police procedural.  (I have no idea if the claims made were true, but they seemed entirely plausible and very much to the point.)  According to one character, a woman had asked a group of men what they most feared about women. “That they’ll laugh at us” was the answer.  She asked a group of women what they most feared about men.  “That they’ll kill us.”

            I admit I have strong opinions on the one side.  But I was actually hoping to hear some moderating views that might make me understand what I might be missing.  Instead, I came away more confirmed than ever that moral vacuity and lack of empathy are all but prerequisites of the winning side in this election.