Reaching Across America's Ideological Divide—Some Dos and Don'ts

       

About a month before the Presidential election, someone named Scott posted on my Facebook page, informing me that he was a classmate of mine from the Class of 1968 at Glenbard West High School in Glen Ellyn, IL and now lives in Arizona, (that turned out to be true, though I didn’t remember him).  Scott wrote that he found my fervid rhetorical attacks on President Trump to be overwrought and wrong-headed. Scott believes Trump has been a superb president with a sterling record of delivering upon his promises and giving millions of Americans like himself a sense of a renewed sense of hope.   

I checked out Scott’s Facebook page, and saw that he identified himself there as “an old American who cares deeply for his, family, friends, countrymen, and the good old USA!” Scott’s profile picture, in which he is holding a sign expressing his love for the Arizona Cardinals professional football team is superimposed over a larger photo of a gigantic American flag that covers the entire length of the football field at Cardinals stadium.   

As many of my readers know, I have been involved for the past 15 years in building ties of communication and cooperation between grass roots American Jews and Muslims.  Nowadays, Muslims and Jews alike are keenly aware we face an urgent challenge to reach across the ideological barricades and find a way to build productive relationships with folks who are avid supporters of a President who has demonized Muslims and, augmented an atmosphere of xenophobia threatening to both our communities. Perhaps I could start with outreach to Scott. We have our Midwestern boyhoods in common and both dig pro football.  Perhaps we could find some common ground.

Unfortunately, I quickly made a botch of my subsequent attempt to establish a constructive relationship with Scott on Facebook. Throughout the last heated month of the presidential campaign, I found myself trying in vain to convince him and others who posted on his page with compelling arguments as to why Trump was an abomination and a deadly peril to American democracy; while he lashed back  that I was a brainwashed leftist possessed by TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome). Amidst our fierce back and forth, I forgot that the main point of my outreach to Scott was supposed to have been about identifying commonalities.

After Scott put up photos on Facebook showing himself and family members  with faces unmasked and exalted at a Trump rally in Arizona a couple of weeks before the election, I wrote that I prayed  he and his loved ones  would be spared from COVID but argued they had been  irresponsible  concerning their own health and that of many others by attending a “super-spreader event” for a president who deliberately put the lives of his own supporters at risk. Scott pushed back at my finger-wagging; explaining that he normally took precautions in his daily life to prevent getting COVID; but there was a special, uplifting energy at the outdoor rally Trump that led him to feel safe and at home.  

A few days before the election, Scott told me that he feared my “head would explode” on November 3 when Trump inevitably won. On November 7, he put up a post that he was “deeply disappointed” Biden appeared likely to prevail, but then went on to enthusiastically thank Trump for all the wonderful things he had done for America. A few weeks later, however, I gingerly renewed the dialogue; letting him know that I had suffered on many occasions when my side lost, and his sharp pain too would be dulled with time. Unfortunately, we again quickly slipped back into vitriol; with me giving voice to my outrage that Trump was falsely denying that he lost the election. Scott wrote that there likely had been fraud, and Trump had every right to investigate.  

On December 1, Scott put up a heartfelt Facebook posting entitled “The Days Ahead Will Be Trying For the Entire Nation.” In it, Scott looked back to the verities of his youth secure in the conviction conveyed in the newscasts of Walter Cronkite and Huntley and Brinkley that “ I was watching people who informed us, exposed us to the world, and literally taught us about business and life through the transfer of information.” However, flash forward to 2020, when amidst “media vitriol and doom and gloom” Scott found himself watching “segments of our population tearing down statues of our Founding Fathers and destroying the hard work and livelihoods of Americans coast to coast”. Scott wrote that it felt like “waking up and learning that your mate of 50 years was not the person you loved. They have a dark side that is scary. They have an agenda that is unsettling.”

Unexpectedly, after pondering Scott’s words, I felt able to empathize with him for the first time.  Like him, I started life with a powerful burst of optimism, impelled by the millennial dreams of the 1960’s to believe we were in the process of building a vibrant new America in which cooperation would replace competition;  racism and exploitation would finally be ended, and we would learn to live in harmony with nature. 50 years on, in my darker moments, I feel like all of my youthful hopes  have been torn to shreds and the bad guys have largely won—with calamitous consequences that could include the very extinction of life on Earth due to human-caused climate change.

So, Scott and I share an acute awareness of being two 70-year-old men with youthful dreams cruelly torn asunder.  I totally relate to Scott’s image of waking up and learning that a big section of America—Scott’s own side—has a dark and unsettling agenda. Tragically, each of us fears and loathes other Americans; whom we believe are out to destroy everything we believe in. As the old Pogo cartoon said, “We have met the enemy and it is us.”  

And there’s the rub; neither of the two Americas is going anywhere and neither seems inclined to give way to the other without a fierce fight; one that could easily spin into violence. Like it or not, we occupy the same physical space, so unless we are ready to fight a second Civil War, we Reds and Blues are going to have to find a way to communicate without tearing each other apart. 

To be sure, we must first make sure that Trump's brazen attempt to steal the election through Supreme Court is turned back--otherwise we will have to go to the streets to ensure the survival of democracy itself. But assuming America gets past this scary moment relatively unscathed, the only way to secure democracy long term is for millions of people on both sides of the divide to reach out to each other.  

How to do that? Let’s start from the premise that we are each vulnerable human beings; presently feeling hurt and scared. Maybe we can find a way to reassure each other that neither is the devil, but, rather, a fellow American who wants to leave a livable and uplifting society for our children and grandchildren. Can we not agree to disagree on political issues yet still connect on a human level and gain insights from each other? 

Scott, sorry it has taken me quite a while to be able to say this, but I very much feel your pain. After a lot of lashing out on Facebook, I’ve come out of my protective crouch and my hand is outstretched to you.