My friend David Boyles suggested even before the January 6 incident at the US Capitol, “We have lost the ability to govern ourselves.”
Perhaps I am in denial, but I hope this is not true.This I do know to be true, and maybe it becomes the same thing: We have lost the ability to listen. We cannot hear each other anymore. This fuels the polarization.
I base this on reading The New York Times and Wall Street Journal, and on listening to conservative talk radio and NPR. I try to capture the substance and tone of the polarization.
Example: Two opposite points generated by the January 6 incident at the US Capitol.
The political left says: Look at the political right. It is violent, while we held peaceful protests over George Floyd’s killing all summer long.
The political right says: Look at the political left. It is violent, and won’t admit it. It trashed miles of stores in violent protests in Minneapolis and held violent protests in Portland all summer long.
The political left responds: Those were provacateurs; that wasn’t us.
The political right retorts: Should we laugh or cry? You explain away the blatant violence in your own camp!
The political left counters: Actually, you’re talking about yourself. Look at Charlottesville. Look at Pittsburgh. Look at all of your white supremacists groups.
The political right comes back . . . etc. etc. The “discussion” never ends. Neither side sees any validity in the perspective of the other. Neither side listens to the other. The more “discussion,” the more polarization.
Another example: Two opposite takes on President Trump’s refusal to accept the results of the 2020 election.
The political left says: President Trump undermines American demo-cracy at its root. This is as bad as it gets. He’s been doing this since Nov. 3, and even before that, during the debate when he said he wouldn’t necessarily accept the results. It’s an open-and-shut case.
The political right says: The emergence of the “resistance” and “never Trump” and “he’s not my president” after the 2016 election is where the refusal to accept the results of an election began. Not accepting a presidential election began with the Democrats.
The political left responds: We never said the 2016 election was fraudulent. We never challenged the Electoral College. We never threatened the electoral certification. Only Trump did that.
The political right retorts: But you made it impossible for Donald Trump to govern. It comes down to the same thing. Besides, Cong. Ed Perlmutter wanted to challenge the certification of the 2016 election — he created the idea. He just couldn’t find anyone to go along with him.
The political left counters: What made it impossible for Trump to govern was Trump himself — his disruption, lack of loyalty to his own appointees, vicious language, the whole sordid list. Perlmutter? Bottom line is that he did not challenge the certification.
The political right comes back: . . . etc. etc. The “discussion” never ends. Neither side listens to the other. Polarization sharpens.
Another example: Two opposite takes on mail-in balloting.
The political left says: It worked like a charm, and besides, it increased voter turnout, which is good for democracy.
The political right says: The irregularities were rampant — changes in rules at the last minute, different standards in different states and different parts of the same state, a greater number of ballots received in a residence than the number of voters who resided there, to cite a few.
The political left counters: You’re making a mountain out of a molehill. There were a few oddities, it always happens. But there was no fraud and no “irregularity” changed the outcome of the election.
The political right retorts: That’s some stance for people who profess outrage at the supposed suppression of voting. Either an election is fair or it is not. Why are you so defensive about investigating irregularities?
The political left counters: Everybody knows that the charge of “irregularities” is Trump’s smokescreen for rejecting the election results and undermining democracy.
The political right retorts . . . etc. etc. No discussion, no listening, only polarization.
Another example: Two takes on Trump’s foreign policy.
The political left says: Trump’s refusal to act tough against Putin is disgraceful, and probably linked to his business interests in Russia. Trump also cozied up to Saudi Arabia, taking no action on its despicable murder of journalist Khashoggi in Turkey; and by the way, Turkey? Here’s another country Trump turned into an enemy of the US. Not to mention his abandonment of the Kurds, our allies in the fight against ISIS, and Trump’s dangerous cancellation of the nuclear agreement with Iran.
The political right says: Nice of you to ignore that Trump did more for Middle East peace than Obama and Clinton put together — unbelievable peace agreements between Israel and Arab countries. As for Putin, it’s Trump, not Obama, who put the sanctions on Putin over Ukraine. Turkey turned against the US for its own internal Islamic reasons before Trump came into office. You mention ISIS: It’s Trump who had the gumption to defeat it, not Obama. Iran. You’ve got horseblinders about Iran.
The political left responds: Nice of you to ignore the Kurds. Yes, Trump did well for Israel. Congratulations. But he has alienated all our allies all over Europe and elsewhere. Sanctions on Russia? All they do is hurt the Russian people without getting Putin to reverse his pointing weapons at Europe and exporting them to American enemies. Iran? Face it. Under Trump, Iran is back to building its nuclear centrifuges. Obama stopped that. Trump stopped ISIS; he also demonized Muslims and shut them out of our country.
The political right retorts: You could also mention Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, and Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, which protects Israel’s security. You could also mention that because of Trump’s genuine sanctions on Iran its income has dropped radically, so it can’t export as much terrorism. You complain about Trump’s ban on Muslim immigrations from certain Islamic countries, but do not mention that nobody is talking about Islamic terrorism in the US anymore; and that Trump banned flights into this country from China to stop the coronavirus, which the Democrats now concede was good but also bitterly criticized at the time.
The political left retorts: . . etc. etc. On and on. Back and forth.
Readers might have noticed two problems with the column above, one structural, one substantive.
The structural problem is this: I have formed the polarization in terms of a debate. But there is very little debate. The sides are talking past each other.
The substantive problem is this: Some say that Trump’s behavior on January 6 renders everything he did from the time he came into office bad, deserving of no independent evaluation. Others say that the record is the record, and it stands, however one judges it.
Can a country like this still govern itself?
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