Acceptance, or judgment?
There is a segment of the population who won’t accede to any gesture of reconciliation. Though I myself didn’t approve of Joe Biden’s divisive remarks about MAGA people in September ’22, the reactions quoted in the article, to Biden’s Christmas ’22 message, are telling. On the one hand, most of the people quoted are actually outside the conservative mainstream. On the other hand, they’re there, which is the subject of this post. The quote from Kevin McCarthy’s spokesperson is particularly troubling; I will not examine whether these folks correctly say Biden said what they say he said.
Similarly, in 2011 there was a short-lived “Civility Movement” following Jared Loughner’s attempt to murder Congressmember Gabby Giffords. He did succeed in killing six others. The “Civility Movement” began with the Sheriff’s remarks to the effect that references to violence in political discourse may lead unstable individuals (like Loughner) to go off the edge.
In the midst of this, a Democratic Congressman named Steve Cohen made some untoward remarks, and other Democrats dressed him down for it, consistent with the Civility Movement’s goals. Nonetheless, immediately after this, my diary records that on Sunday morning 01/21/11, the panel of four conservative commentators on the WBAL morning show all insisted that the Movement was a leftist effort to — as we would say today — “cancel” right-wing speech.
Which thus, apparently, in their view, cannot be distinguished from hate speech; but that’s a different question.
Their history.
The number of 30% comes up over and over and over.
A screenshot from 2022-12-13.
These folk constitute Trump’s base. No matter how low his approval rating falls, it never falls below 30%.
The same share of the population supported the Tea Party’s shutdown of the federal government for 16 days in October 2013. Though composed wholly of Republicans, the Tea Party, the antecedent of the current Freedom Caucus, made life hell for Republican House Speaker John Boehner.
The same portion of the population voted for Barry Goldwater in 1964.
Who they are. There are considerable overlaps among these categories. They include:
All the “Patriots.”
All the conspiracy theorists.
All the white racial bigots. (I cannot say “racists,” because the concept of “systemic racism” teaches that ALL whites are “racist.”) This includes all the Klansmen, all the Klanswomen, and all the neo-Nazis.
They are disproportionately rural.
They are disproportionately uneducated.
Their attributes. There are considerable overlaps among these categories, too:
They’re white. Being 30% of the overall population, and all white; whites being 7/8 of the overall population; this 30% of the overall population stands for roughly 35% of white people.
They’re Republican. Republicans being roughly half the overall population, and this group being 30% of the overall population and all Republicans; they are, thus, more than half of Republicans. This may or may not be A Problem. The bitter strife within the Republican Party in Arizona, in 2022-23, may be indicative.
They’re unhappy.
They are, like Ron Smith, fundamentally insecure.
They believe in exclusion.
They have high social dominance orientation.
They are social conservatives.
They are motivated by fear and anger.
They use motivated reasoning.
They are not fact-oriented.
They are prone to create and believe fake news.
They abhor uncertainty.
Soul evolution, soul growth
Being motivated principally by fear and anger, it is perhaps a case of arrested development that these folk are “stuck” at the third chakra, the yellow chakra, where one finds the fight-or-flight response. In terms of Lawrence Kohlberg’s stages of moral development, they display “conventional” morality.
Soul growth or soul evolution, for them, would entail greater engagement of the fourth chakra, the green chakra, where one finds compassion and love; and the fifth chakra, the blue one, where one finds hope.
In this regard, they are distinct from the lumpen, who have arrested development at the second chakra; who continually make their lives a struggle to survive, whom Kohlberg would call “premoral.”
Judgment, or Acceptance?
Jesus said, “Offenses are sure to come.” (Matthew 18:7)
We — “We” — have our choices as to how to deal with these people. We can judge them negatively, and cast aspersions toward them. This serves no useful purpose. On the contrary, Hillary Clinton’s “basket of deplorables” remark may have cost her the election.
Another option is acceptance, which has two stages. First, we have the option to accept the fact that these folk exist, as opposed to insisting that they either change or go away. These folk are here, now, and have been for decades; and aren’t particularly likely to change or go away. Jesus said, “Offenses are sure to come.” One can get angry at the offense itself, or one can get angry at the fact that offenses come; and the latter is particularly futile.
In his Easter 2023 message, Donald Trump ratchets up the hate.
Or, one can accept that these folk are, as they are.
And it’s quite possible they may never change. By comparison, humanity has been dealing with the lumpen since time immemorial.
Prayer and peace of mind
The second stage of acceptance is to accept the people themselves.
The first and second stages of acceptance may be all I need to have peace of mind about these matters.
Is there any good I can do?
William Tell the talk show host can explain, and model by example, features that would undo a dysfunctional worldview and enable folk to be happier.
My prayers about these matters consistently wind up going in a certain direction. I wind up praying that ALL Americans be happy, and happier. Not 30%; not 70%; ALL.
And I’m praying only for Americans.
The issue there: the 30% hate other Americans. That’s whom they hate. And this need not be. We need to reach a state where Americans feel loyalty to one another, as Americans, far stronger than their political disagreements.
Then there will no longer be “us” and “them.” It will only be “us” — ALL of us.
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Related:
“A Monmouth University poll conducted in June 2023 found that 30% of Americans believe that Biden won the 2020 election because of voter fraud.
“A Pew Research Center poll conducted in January 2023 found that 34% of Americans believe that there was widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election.”
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