Do you not understand what happens when you let crazy people win your primaries?
- Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA)
The people have spoken. President Obama has won a chance to move beyond the stunted progress of his first term and, perhaps, become a historic president. On the losing side, the Republican Party remains shut out of the White House and has blown a chance to take over the U.S. Senate, largely because it catered to the narrow concerns of tea party zealots and social conservatives who imagined themselves as the only authentic Americans but who are, in fact, way out of step with most of the people in this country.
If Republicans fail to learn the lesson of this election they are fools. If they continue to let Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity set the angry, extreme tone for their philosophy; if they continue to let anti-science religious fundamentalists dictate their social agenda; and if they think Mitt Romney fell short because he was not conservative enough when, in fact, he only began to catch on with moderate voters when he suddenly veered from his self-proclaimed “severe conservatism” and transformed back into a Massachusetts moderate; then they are doomed to become a party of the past.
I found this graphic on my Facebook news feed yesterday morning, courtesy of a friend and former co-worker in Houston. I’ll spare him the ignominy of being outed, because while he and I may be at opposite ends of the political spectrum, our differences have never been personal. Still, I find myself wondering if this sort of gratuitously offensive comic represents the death of civility nationwide. Is America destined to become irretrievably cleaved along ideological lines? Can the Far Right accept the fact that this election represented, at least in part, a repudiation of the politics of hatred and disrespect? Can they recognize that their ideas are not ordained by Almighty God and that they’re not above being defeated?
The graphic is easily the single most offensive item I’ve run across during this election season. That my friend would proudly post it on his Facebook page stuns me. What I find even more concerning is that someone could post a comic like that and see nothing wrong with it and can’t understand how those who voted for Barack Obama could POSSIBLY take offense. Whatever the explanation, as I’ve responded to him on so many occasions, smug arrogance is NOT a substitute for a substantial, realistic, and defensible argument. Falling back on cheap personal insults only demonstrates how little you truly have to offer…unless you think anger and disrespect are all your ideological adversaries deserve.
I don’t believe the political equals the personal. What we think and believe is not who we are. I also don’t believe that the vast majority of Americans believe that those who think and believe differently are inherently ignorant, evil, and worthy only of scorn and derision. Americans come together when confronted with a challenge; we don’t engage in personal insults and smugly walk away believing that we’ve put The Other in their place.
I’m truly sorry that my friend felt it appropriate to give in to his darker angels and engage in such a smug and mean-spirited cheap shot. I would have thought him above that, and I hope I wasn’t mistaken…because he’s a genuinely good person. That said, I don’t think it’s a stretch to make the case that being inappropriately disrespectful should not go unchallenged. We’re Americans, and we- ALL of us- deserve better.
