Yesterday’s U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee hearings with Christine Blasey Ford, the psychologist who accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her in the 1980s and Kavanaugh’s response — the latter, probably even more so — should be instructive. President Donald Trump’s response to Kavanaugh’s outburst, which primarily accused the Democrats of trying to railroad him, was, “[That’s] exactly why I nominated him.”
That is to say, Trump got elected in the first place largely by badmouthing everyone who dared to stand up to or, at the very least, disagree with him. It’s very likely that Kavanaugh’s response was thus a calculated political ploy to remind the base of its collective resentment of some “other” that’s trying to take away its power.
Over the past few months prominent Republicans have often found themselves accosted by critics, generally at restaurants, where they’ve been as a result told to leave. Trump’s supporters have tried to paint those incidents as the work of unhinged liberals trying to disrupt civil discourse — they’re deadly wrong, however, because Trump has never, ever been civil in the first place. In other words, it’s a matter of fighting fire with fire.
Moreover, this is nothing new; it’s been happening for decades (I first noticed this in 1980). If you subscribe to Christian media, which I rarely do these days, notice how often they refer to “liberals,” “gays,” Muslims or, the latest pejorative, “social justice warriors.” That kind of language is only inflammatory and does nothing to bring the country together over common goals. And when folks refuse to be confronted over their divisive speech, you have what you saw yesterday.
We’re ultimately looking at a collective failure to take responsibility for one’s attitudes and actions as well as a failure to see others as human beings rather than categories, and that’s not good for either the country in general or the Church in particular. I’m reminded of the old song, “Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me” — that is, everyone doing his part to build a just and peaceful society.
But — what about “them”? Never mind that — “let it begin with me.”
That is to say, Trump got elected in the first place largely by badmouthing everyone who dared to stand up to or, at the very least, disagree with him. It’s very likely that Kavanaugh’s response was thus a calculated political ploy to remind the base of its collective resentment of some “other” that’s trying to take away its power.
Over the past few months prominent Republicans have often found themselves accosted by critics, generally at restaurants, where they’ve been as a result told to leave. Trump’s supporters have tried to paint those incidents as the work of unhinged liberals trying to disrupt civil discourse — they’re deadly wrong, however, because Trump has never, ever been civil in the first place. In other words, it’s a matter of fighting fire with fire.
Moreover, this is nothing new; it’s been happening for decades (I first noticed this in 1980). If you subscribe to Christian media, which I rarely do these days, notice how often they refer to “liberals,” “gays,” Muslims or, the latest pejorative, “social justice warriors.” That kind of language is only inflammatory and does nothing to bring the country together over common goals. And when folks refuse to be confronted over their divisive speech, you have what you saw yesterday.
We’re ultimately looking at a collective failure to take responsibility for one’s attitudes and actions as well as a failure to see others as human beings rather than categories, and that’s not good for either the country in general or the Church in particular. I’m reminded of the old song, “Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me” — that is, everyone doing his part to build a just and peaceful society.
But — what about “them”? Never mind that — “let it begin with me.”
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