Contemptuous....

Brent and I talk about the challenges of our current political and social situation in the United States quite a bit. How it's just mean. Deeply mean. Disturbingly mean. How quickly a disagreement leads to a death threat. And how hard it is to break from that. 

Freakonomics did a podcast this last week talking to Arthur C. Brooks about his book "Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America from the Culture of Contempt" Brent sent me the link to make sure I didn't miss it. I listened and it was all very...

Well. Very.

I mean I like the top line idea that there are really mostly decent people out there that just need to keep being decent. I like the idea that we can all have different beliefs and still get a long. I like the idea that being considerate of each other is still a thing that can happen but...

I also realized that I am further gone than whoever he needs to be speaking to. 

I'll give you two points where I just couldn't go there with Mr. Brooks while he was being so earnest in his "can't we all just get along" speech. First he talked about President Biden and what he needs to do to prove that he's all about everybody. That he is the leader that can bring back the United States to a point where if we don't agree, at least we can be decent to each other. See, what he needs to do is push for moderate things. With the first step being put moderate Republicans in positions to help. And not listen to the far edges of his party that are so radical in what they want. 

So basically let Manchin run the show? I mean...aren't we?

Oh, no, I get it. Manchin is a Democrat not a moderate Republican, but he's really so moderate that you can't tell what he is. 

And I have to say that whole line of reasoning always sets my teeth on edge anyway. That the way Democrats need to show they are good people who want to get along is to not govern as Democrats when they get the majorities but as centrist Republicans. And then everybody will be great. You do understand that's not why people voted for them right? 

And he said this knowing the history. Clinton and Obama were centrists. I know you don't think so, Republican friends, but they were. And they were fought and stopped as much as they could be. Which with Obama it was pretty much a complete stop. Ideas that had been Republican ones were stopped as soon as Democrats said, Okay, sure, let's do this. 

He also said that most politicians were really good and decent people. Most. 

He said this after playing a clip from Matt Gaetz earlier in the show. Matt Gaetz is a good person? Really? 

Again I direct you to the current voting records for basic things like, oh I don't know, raising the debt ceiling to pay for items already budgeted and money already spent (under a Republican president) and how not a single Republican voted to pass it. Not a single one. There are plenty of other votes just like that, keeping the government from shutting down? Nope, not going to vote on that. But if you guys want to argue about gutting climate change policies we will argue and persuade you to do that, before not voting to pass it. 

Over and over you see it. 

Reading the reviews for his book on Amazon and the low star ones were from Republicans who wanted to make it clear that Democrats were the worst. Absolute worst. They played dirty and couldn't be reasoned with and just wanted to destroy the country. And well, that's how Democrats feel about Republicans so I'm not sure that his book isn't about 50 years too late.  

So Brent and I talked about it at breakfast. And I said that my biggest problem with not acting like I think people are contemptuous is that I believe that some of them are. I do have contempt for a large swath of people right now. I find a lot of them to be flat out disgusting. I cannot fathom acting nice to them while they threaten Civil War and refuse to do anything toward stopping a pandemic and swear the last election was rigged and filled with fraud and do everything they can to shut down voting rights for large swaths of people so they can regain and stay in positions of power as minority majority rule. 

I find it contemptuous that people follow this man:

Edit: Image removed because I didn't want it to be the thing showing when I linked my page, but here is a link to a tweet containing the same image. And instead I am adding a lovely picture of  fall leaves.

If you can't read it it says: "Wonderful to see Colin Powell, who made big mistakes on Iraq and famously, so-called weapons of mass destruction, be treated in death so beautifully by the Fake News Media. Hope that happens to me someday. He was a classic RINO, if even that, always being the first to attack other Republicans. He made plenty of mistakes, but anyway, may he rest in peace!" 

If that's not contemptuous I don't know what is. 

And it's not just him. It's not just Matt Gaetz. It's not just talking heads on TV or on the radio, it's the trickle down (OH MY GOD, IT FINALLY WORKED!) to people they've led to believe this is how we talk to each other. 

This morning a friend of mine sent me a copy of a PM she had received from someone she had been friends with. You will see why it's a "had been" not a currently. Seems they were talking vaccines and my friend, who is Australian, had no idea how deep the fucking crazy runs here. She's seen my frustration but knows that it's personal for me. The death is a family situation. We know it's real. Though I really hope that even if we hadn't lost someone so early in the pandemic we still would have been all in on making sure we and everyone around us was as safe as we could help make them and us. Ready? This is how my friend's former friend decided to address her:

Nice right? And she's not being forced. I mean she has to get the vaccine if she wants to work where she is currently working, but she can quit. She can find a different job. She can try to find a doctor that will give her a religious exemption. She can do a lot of things. But what she chose to do was send this message to someone who she had been friends with. 

Now, I will absolutely admit that there are a lot of people that I just want to start posting FUUUUUUCCCKKK YOUUUUU on their anti-vaccine posts. Or their masks are dangerous posts. Or the government is faking all of this just to get more control posts. But I haven't started it yet. 

Yet.

So maybe I'm not too far gone?

I find what they are doing contemptuous but dismiss them instead of call them Old Hags so does that make it better? 

Or does the fact that I can't even be bothered to try and find some sort of common ground on the issues make it worse?

I'm actually not sure. 

But what I do know is that some things are worthy of contempt. 

Not everything. And most differences of opinions shouldn't be met with death threats. 

But...I'm also not ready to just do moderate things that Republicans like and pretend that capitulation is the only way forward when it means that people are dying from lack of health care and living in poverty and below due to unfair work conditions and pretend the planet isn't dying because it wouldn't be as profitable is we did something about it.

And I find the fact that he wants to act like he is being decent by suggesting such a thing well...