Is there a better way?
As i start to compose this piece, one of the underlying reasons for doing so has to do with a long Facebook thread on friend Sianna Lieb’s wall underneath her post of an article claiming that a majority of Bernie Sanders supporters intend to withhold their support for any Democratic nominee who is not Bernie (and presumably then, not vote against Trump with the rest of us). The discussion (which was quite civil) among a bunch of folks, some of whom i know, and others who i don’t was fascinating, illuminating and inspiring.
Then more recently (just within the last hour or so), in the middle of replying to an email from good friend Sandra, i found myself praying for her husband’s full and speedy recovery from broken ribs that he sustained in a fall. Prayer is not something i’ve engaged in over most of my life, but beginning just over a month or so ago, i’ve been ‘dipping my toe in the water’ and asking Mother Earth, Father Sky, Cygnus the god of Balance, Nature, Spirit, and/or anyone else willing to “listen” for guidance. But this decision to pray for a specific outcome in the future (the healing of Evan’s ribs) was (at least in my way of thinking) a much bigger ask. Since i’d decided to step “over the line” from requesting direction/guidance to asking for a specific outcome, i decided “in for a dime, in for a dollar” and also prayed for justice, and specifically for the left in the USA to come together around a candidate who will win the presidential election just over 9 months from now. This made me think a little deeper, and i realized that i actually want a lot more. So my prayer morphed into a request that the eventual candidate from the Democratic primary be someone who can truly begin to unite the whole country and start to heal some of our worst wounds. We are obviously severely divided, and my thinking next meandered to Vladimir Putin and the way he’s so successfully stoked such divisions. But really we started fighting with each other long before Putin arrived on the scene with his army of info-and-cyber-warfare trolls, and so he’s much more a symptom than a ‘cause’ of our problems here in the US. In fact, it’s a really good lesson for us after all. For so many decades prior, various factions within the US cynically and selfishly manipulated foreign governments and elections. So having the tables turned on us is not a bad thing. It should open our eyes to the destruction *we* have caused elsewhere by tactics very similar to those being used so successfully against us now.
Negativity is truly corrosive, and over time, the result of focusing on criticism of our political opponents rather than instead emphasizing the positive things we wish to put forth has eroded our very culture and society. i don’t fully understand how to counter this. It’s a truism of politics that the surest way to win is to destroy one’s opponent’s reputation. Is this an inherent flaw of democracy? i think not.
By seeing where such behaviors and actions have gotten us, we can shine the light on just how desperate our situation currently is. And we can find a better way.
There are those who argue that for a Democratic candidate to win in November, we must stoop to Donald Trump’s level and fully go on the attack against him. While that strategy might in fact work to win this election, i think it would ultimately just lead to an even worse outcome in the future. Certainly criticism of policies we disagree with is appropriate. But let’s leave the character assassination and other cynical tactics to others and find positives to rally behind. Inclusiveness over division please.
