"Things fall apart; the center cannot hold; The worst are full of passionate intensity."
'Let's go, Brandon," was the cleaned up version.
It is hard to know whether we are seeing genuine anger. Maybe it is simply strategy. People want attention, so they use shocking, in-your-face language to get it. These are fighting words intended to show disrespect. We win, you lose. The angriest words aren't everywhere, but they are around--especially in rural areas and on pickup trucks.
I received the commentary below from an Ashland, Oregon resident who has not yet been hardened into the new reality of political language. "Don't use my name," he said. He had an up-close experience. He wanted to describe his feelings, but he doesn't want to fight about it.
Guest Post by Anonymous
A few days ago, I drove into Medford to visit a friend. As I turned onto Crater Lake Highway from the I-5 off-ramp, I noticed this bumper sticker plastered across the rear window of the Acura SUV in front of me. In big bold letters it read:
FUCK YOUR VACCINES
FUCK YOUR FEELINGS
The driver was a middle-aged woman with tattoos on her arms. Living in Ashland, I don’t get to see this type of thing very often. I know I live in a bubble. I jokingly refer to my town as “The People’s Republic of Cosmic Healing.”
The bumper sticker had what I suspect was its intended effect – I was shocked. It reminded me of how insular my world has become. I had worked in a conservative industry before retiring – financial services. Most of the people I dealt with were Republicans, as you might expect in that field. Most were good people, folks you would want as your neighbors – responsible, polite, intelligent. Most, I suspect, voted Republican for economic reasons – low taxes and minimal regulation. Some were strongly anti-abortion. But we were all in business together and needed to get along and respect one another.
I had a very good client, Dave, who was very well read. He idolized Ronald Reagan. He would periodically send me links to conservative thinkers. It never occurred to me to similarly send him the works of progressive writers. The desire to proselytize was a one-way street. In 2008 things began to change. He started sending me more vitriolic emails, aimed at his new target, Barack Obama. The vitriol got more and more wicked. It never crossed into overtly racist, but I found it very off-putting. I didn’t respond to them – I deleted them.
Once. Dave and I got together for dinner with our wives. As he steered the conversation to politics, my wife said: “Dave, we know that if your family had an emergency, we would be there for you (in fact, we had been), and we know that you would be there for us. Let’s agree to disagree about politics and nurture our friendship.” But Dave could not let it go and the political emails continued.
So, in 2016 when Trump was elected, I thought – Well, what’s good for the goose….. – and sent him a political cartoon lampooning Trump. His reaction was over the top angry and defensive. The psychological term is “over-determined response.” I realized that I had hit a nerve – not just about politics. Since then, I get annual birthday emails, no doubt generated by his sales software, but for all intents and purposes, our friendship is over. He was my last conservative friend.
Our society is becoming more and more fragmented into two tribes – Conservative and Progressive: Republican and Democrat. My personal experience verifies this for me. I know that unless we can find common ground and talk to one another respectfully the bifurcation will not heal.
But I am at a loss. And although I know that I “should” feel empathy for people who are so angry, or perhaps, so threatened by our changing society that they feel the need to plaster their cars or front yards with “FUCK BIDEN” or “FUCK KATE BROWN” or the like, I’m finding it difficult to generate that empathy. The anger on the other side is palpable and threatening.
The best I can do most days is to feel sadness, but even that, as honest and compassionate as it might be, is eschewed by the angry right, for to paraphrase the bumper sticker, which put it so concisely:
FUCK MY FEELINGS
12 comments:
Two comments. “Go Brandon” hats and shirts sold here” was flashing on a marque in front of a restaurant in Grants Pass. This establishment was suffering a huge $ penalty for operating during a COVID lock down. I wanted to walk in and yell “Fuck Biden” and see if I got an applause..then scream “ Democrats not served here” I kept on driving.
My lifelong friendship ended when he wouldn’t speak to me because I defended the gay life, not the chosen gay life but the biological gay life. I tried before he passed away from MS, A LIFE LONG FRIENDSHIP LOST IN HATE.
What unites America now? Church used to unite us, expressing to love one another. Football does a little bit. A fellow kinship happens for me when I see a Seahawks hat or shirt, but it is a superficial feeling, not heartfelt. Social media pushes separation into groups. War united us, before Vietnam. Maybe will get lucky and some alien from outer space will come down and attack us. Then all those guns will come in handy. Everyone will be against aliens killing us right?
You poor liberals! My heart bleeds for you!
Democrats started to impeach Trump before he was even elected. Does that sound fair to you?
Democrats constantly called Trump the "Orange Man", or tRump. Does that sound respectful to you?
Alan Journet (from SOCAN)has called every Trump supporter a "racist". REALLY? Those are fighting words. I've dated more minority women than you know minorities.
I don't want to hear liberals whine. They can stick it where the sun doesn't shine. They get what they give, and they've given so much disrespect and abuse to conservative over the years that we are finished with them. They've previously indicated that they want conservatives eliminated. Guess what? We want the same for them.
I've been smeared by the liberal media more than you can imagine. It's been vicious. Payback is going to be a bitch for the liberal media in November.
Democrats want to shove socialism down our throats. They've destroyed the economy. They want to enslave us. Do you expect us to thank them for it? Expect hostility. They deserve it.
Curt Ankerberg
Medford, OR
For the most part the MAGA cult has recruited middle aged and older Americans who have reached a point in their lives where they realize they will never, never have the wealth and status that they were promised.
Faced with a wasted life and unable to accept responsibility for their failures, running out of time and desperate to find someone else to blame they have grasped the lies offered by Republicans, lies that conveniently play into the nascent racism and bigotry that was simmering under the surface of the race and class superiority that they held as their immutable right.
Are they angry? Yes, but the anger is a projection. The real villains are in the mirror.
I too received those emails from “friends” when Obama was running for president, claiming he was from Kenya, a Muslim, the anti-Christ, etc. I soon found there's no reasoning with crazy, so mockery finally got me off their mailing list.
When we elected our first Black president, the Republican Party’s veneer of civilization came unglued and Trump was the result. Under his leadership, the party abandoned any pretense of caring about the environment, our democracy, or anything besides power. It’s degenerated into a tribe that believes the answer to gun violence is more guns, the answer to climate change is more oil, and the answer to losing an election is overturning it.
Such madness belongs in an institution where you can humor them when they’re docile, restrain them when they’re violent and make sure they take their meds on time. But when they’re running amuck in such large numbers, what can you do?
Peter,
You can censor all you want. It's proof that you can't debate your liberal political positions. They're weak. Further, your Harvard history degree doesn't make you any smarter than a high school dropout who works at a burger stand.
Most weeks, I get together with two guys (Bob and Rick) who I have been friends with for decades. We often discuss politics. (Bob is who introduced me to this blog.)
I am a relatively conservative hippie Buddhist patriot. They are both very much on the liberal side. We get along quite well and often have interesting and amicable discussions about our differences.
We are inspired by the work of Jonathan Haidt, among others.
It’s possible to bridge the divide, when you have people who are relatively sane and interested in expanding their minds.
Interesting mix of remarks today. Borrowing from Mr. Spock, who in all likelihood would have been, at best, scorned by socalled conservatives, if not for his ears, or mixed blood heritage, some other imagined transgression; Fascinating.
Peter,
Curt’s whining about being viciously smeared by the “liberal” media could leave some readers perplexed, so it seems appropriate to clarify: He’s referring to the Medford Mail Tribune which has reported on his illegal activities. It’s called doing their job.
Productive or at least illuminating debate on important topics among courteous, well-informed adults begins with defining terms and citing common authorities for reference as needed.
The next hurdle, traditionally anyway, is the mutual respect accorded those with whom we still disagree while nonetheless acknowledging the intellectual and ethical heft of their stance.
Alinsky’s controversial insight was that most mature, educated or engaged adults rarely change their worldview once formed, so what remains for the consumption of e.g. the independent and undecided is to cast opponents as any combination of dumb, crazy or in bad faith.
A key question for today is whether the comparative decline of “agree to disagree” and “marketplace of ides” values is due to better or poorer information, greater or lesser (self-)education, or to realistic versus uncharitable conceptions of the value and purpose of debate itself.
In short, how much modem political moralizing and sloganeering is really just navel-gazing and merits-avoidance? When is it about whose ox is being gored versus useful awareness of intractable conflicts in absolute terms? IS there a worthwhile debated to be had?
LD,
I think you can measure the possibility of honest and open discussion with someone by looking at the proportion of snark and invective that their speech contains. Even small amounts of these toxic elements can make a rational and productive discussion with that person next to impossible.
Communicating between different intellectual positions is possible. Communicating with emotional reactions is much less so.
Yes indeed.
Repition of talking points, use of barbs, snark, and other off topic terms rather than engaging in the discussion, make it easy to ignore some commentary.
I'm here in France for a few weeks, so my meager foreign language skills make it impossible to seriously engage with the locals on their French developments. I'm asked in fairly good English what the heck 8s going on in the US, and I can only respond that it depends on where in the US do you mean?
I see quite a few different attitudes in the US, depending on topics, and it's hard to explain.
One thing I do know for sure, that in comparison to Oregon, the french surely know how to keep their cities clean and tidy, and law and order presence is visible everywhere. The gendarmes and their cadre of security personnel are everywhere.
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