“You know what you should write about? You should write about how nasty everyone is. About how no one talks to anyone anymore.”
My friend Tracy was tiring of the midterm election campaign, disgusted by the number and tone of campaign ads. I couldn’t disagree with her. The day before, I had received four large placard mailings from supporters of one candidate (U.S. Rep. Bruce Poliquin) attacking his opponent as a “young, radical socialist.” One showed (now Rep.-elect) Jared Golden with sleeves rolled up to reveal a tattoo on his right forearm.
How does seeing a tattoo inform me about either candidate or about any issue? No mailing I received during the campaign contributed one whit to my understanding.
Yet in this interstice between election and swearings-in, I renew hope that some of our leaders will step forward with the willingness and ability to work with people with whom they don’t always agree. In New Sharon, we are fortunate to be represented at the state level by Sen. Russell Black, a Republican who has worked across the aisle, most notably on expanding Medicaid, and by Scott Landry, a Democrat who as a Farmington selectman has shown an ability to work with everyone on the board.
Rep. Kathleen Dillingham, R-Oxford, was also encouraging when she said, upon being elected House GOP leader, “I look forward to working with our colleagues across the aisle.” Let’s hope that House Speaker Sara Gideon, D-Freeport, continues walking the path of cooperation, along with Senate Majority Leader Troy Jackson, D-Allagash, who has a history of combat, especially with outgoing (just 24 more days!) Gov. Paul LePage.
On the federal level, our second district is sending Golden to Washington, when Poliquin’s babyish antics are done. Golden is a temperate Democrat who showed in two terms in the Maine House that he could work with Republicans, even going so far as being filmed drinking beer with state Sen. Tom Saviello, a Republican and experienced cross-aisle worker and thorn in the side of LePage.
I’m not so hopeful for the federal leadership, where House Democrats are returning Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to the speakership. Pelosi is the legislative master who largely wrote the law called Obamacare and assembled the votes to pass it. But she has a hard partisan edge, as when she said of Obamacare, “Of course we wrote the bill (without Republican input). We won the election.” Her counterpart, Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., is at least as hard-core partisan as Pelosi but probably not so legislatively skilled.
The Senate is led, alas, by Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, a bitter obstructionist, on the Republican side, and Chuck Schumer of New York, a Democrat who mouths progressive lines while taking in piles of cash contributions from Wall Street.
If our leaders won’t step out of the sandbox and into the world of grownups, that job may be left to individuals. That is, us.
Some writers are finding hope at the grassroots. Deborah and James Fallows recently published “Our Towns: A 100,000 mile journey into the heart of America.” The couple profiled a couple of dozen towns and cities — Eastport was perhaps the smallest city they visited — improved by people working with people with whom they often didn’t agree.
David Brooks, a conservative (in a traditional sense) columnist for The New York Times, has been out in the countryside trying to get inside the mind of America. He returns from each trip with renewed hope and writes about what’s right with America.
Lots of other folks are trying to bring the sides together, perhaps none more than Better Angels, which works to get people on the extremes to sit down and talk. Better Angels trains people in how to ask questions that will get answers, not just anger.
Better Angels’ key points: “We try to understand the other side’s point of view, even if we don’t agree with it. We engage those we disagree with, looking for common ground and ways to work together. We support principles that bring us together rather than divide us.” Better Angels has about 4,500 members, a mere drop in the bucket, and asks only $10 to join. Its website is better-angels.org.
I have been interested for some time in starting such a forum around here for people of different, maybe even wildly different, points of view. A pastor told me she started a group at her church in southern Maine to discuss ideas from vastly different points of view. It went well for a while, she said, with people of all stripes speaking respectfully with one another. In time, though, attendance and diversity dwindled.
Daniel Allott, writing in “America, The Jesuit Review,” makes three points. Avoid social media. Civil and respectful conversations happen only in person, not anonymously on so-called social media. Second, ask fair questions and listen, and then listen some more. The point is not to prove the other guys are “deplorable” but to grapple with difficult issues and to learn as much as possible about them.
Finally, embrace the struggle between what may seem to be competing truths. For example, recognize that Trump is a narcissistic bully while also acknowledging that he has done some things right. Or, believe that Obama was a flawed president without also embracing the myth that he is a Muslim or was born in Kenya.
That third point may be the most telling. It asks us to take nothing as all black or all white. We live in a world of gray. We need to talk with all the other gray people and to learn about the gray issues. The devil is in the details. So is the progress.
The militant middle is where Bob Neal places himself. He takes comfort knowing that most Americans are there with him. We just haven’t found a similar voice in our leaders.
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