Tag: Trump

The Hatred

I originally wrote this post with the intention of publishing it prior to the anniversary of the January 6 Insurrection. But I found I couldn’t bear to start the year on so sad and awful a note.

A few years back, pre-Pandemic (since that is how we all now date everything in our lives) an acquaintance informed me that we would not fall out over my blog post, “The Benefit of the Doubt”, written concerning his experience with the so-called “Love” booth at an Indy Pride event. As I explained in that earlier essay, it wasn’t entirely clear, from his description, what this “Love” booth was actually all about. I assumed that it promulgated love and acceptance of the LGBTQ community. Or perhaps, I thought a bit wildly, the people manning the booth were there just to give hugs, like the great church-wide hugging plague of the 1980s. Still another possibility was that the stall provided information on ways the community might demonstrate love and acceptance to everyone of every race, creed and gender. My friend’s description of the booth left its purpose unclear, but he’d been very upset by the individuals operating the Love booth.

It seemed that, as he’d listened throughout the day to many very liberal, far-left comments by the people manning the stall (which was positioned right next to his own booth), he’d found himself wondering, was still wondering: Had he strolled over to that stall, wearing his MAGA hat, and explained to them his adamant view that then-President Trump was “our greatest President ever”, what would their reaction have been? Would the people manning the Love booth have considered him loveable, or even likeable? Or would they have reacted with anger? He was extremely doubtful, he said, that love would have been their reaction.

My blog post about that situation explored the idea that my friend assumed their response, rather than put his question to the test. He didn’t engage with the people manning the Love booth, providing them a chance to refute his position without rejecting him personally, or to talk through their differences.

So a few weeks after that event, when my blog post on the subject was published, my friend magnanimously explained to me that we would not fall out over my remarks, because: “You weren’t there. You didn’t hear it—the hatred”.

Unfortunately, once again, he made an unwarranted assumption. Because I was hearing it—hearing and reading and seeing the hatred every day. At the time, restrictions to written news commentary had not been established. Every news story could be commented upon; one rarely even needed to register on most news sites to leave a comment. Those comment pages were filled with sadistic, trolling statements; rife with cruelty that the overwhelmed moderators could not screen out. My highly-political and extremely conservative father constantly forwarded e-mails to me that, remarking viciously upon the viewpoints I held, made me cry. And while I personally eschewed social media, friends told me of the brutal statements that were posted to their pages. I’d even once sat, helpless and cringing, while two acquaintances nearly came to blows over their opposing viewpoints.

Hatred, I discovered, was not confined to any one group or any single position. People from both sides and corners of the fence slung insults and violent verbiage at one another. And all of it was escalating.

Trying to establish a middle-of-the-road position for myself, I read the news from multiple sources, both left and right, and was on each part equally horrified. What had happened to compromise, to the art of listening? How had our constitutional right to free speech fallen so far?

Then we held a free, fair and, yes, honest election, and Trump lost the popular vote for the second time, this time losing the electoral vote, as well. He had paved the way for doubt on the part of his followers by claiming the election to be rigged even before it happened. Having genuinely lost, he then totally refused to accept his failure. He did not even pretend to be anything other than that entity so despised throughout my childhood: a sore loser.

And so January 6th happened. Sitting paralyzed with horror, clutching my toddler grandchild within the protective circle of my arms, I sat watching while tears rained down my face. I watched it: the hatred, and the horrific violence fueled by hatred.

Months later, still engaged in attempting to maintain a fair and balanced vision of all that was happening in my country, I sat watching once more as Fox News pundit Laura Ingraham viciously mocked the PTSD suffered by those who had gallantly struggled to defend our Capitol on that ghastly day. Observing her derisive facial expressions, listening to her contemptuous remarks, I experienced it yet one more time: the hatred.

“You weren’t there. You didn’t hear it—the hatred.”

No, my friend, I did not need to be there on that long ago Indy Pride day to hear, to experience, the hatred. I have seen it a hundred, a thousand times, then and since: In banned books. In violent attacks on minority individuals and elected officials and their families. In defamatory comments toward those who hold differing viewpoints. In incitement to violence. In bigotry and racism from and toward people of every color, creed and gender.

I have seen it everywhere, on every face; heard it in every voice: the hatred.

And I despair.

You may read the original essay, “The Benefit of the Doubt”, by scrolling to the archived blog posts, below. It was published on July 31, 2019

Pandemic “Logic”

Hammering my head against a brick wall has never, for some unfathomable reason, been my favorite activity. Yet I seem to have done a lot of it since March, 2020.

Since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, I have been engaged in a battle of wits, with, no, not an unarmed person, but one who continually brings a knife to a gun fight.

At the first whisper of the approaching pandemic, I voiced my concerns. My apprehension elicited a reaction amounting to a big shrug and a long lecture. After all, I was informed, the SARS epidemic of 2002 did not reach pandemic proportions; ditto, bird flu. MERS never even amounted to epidemic, let alone pandemic proportions. The most serious outbreaks of Ebola, although devastating to other countries, resulted in very few cases reaching the U.S.

Of course, my disputant quite ignored the fact that, during those years, from 2002 to 2016, the US was governed by administrations in which Presidents were actually literate and capable of reading their daily briefings, all the while maintaining cordial, informative relationships with the WHO and CDC. Unfortunately for America (and fortunately for the novel coronavirus), 2020 found us governed by an orangutan who couldn’t have located his own backside using both hands and a proctologist. (I apologize to orangutans, who are actually very intelligent creatures.)

My plaints fell on deaf ears. As both case counts and deaths began to accumulate, I was assured by the Font of All Wisdom that Covid-19 was no worse than any other annual influenza. “Really?” I dared question. “I don’t ever recall seeing plague pits and mass burials during previous winter flu epidemics.” But the photos I displayed of the distressing Hart Island burials were dismissed with a wave of the hand.

Then worldwide death tolls spiraled upward. Nationwide mask mandates and lockdowns were initiated (to which I reacted with a nod to necessity while hunkering down for the duration). Meanwhile, I was sent information regarding Sweden’s herd immunity experiment and copies of the so-called Great Barrington Declaration.

“Hmmm,” I responded, watching Sweden’s death toll pile up countless times higher than any of its neighboring Nordic countries, decimating its elderly population and leaving thousands suffering the lingering effects of long-haul symptoms. “Hmmm. Isn’t it odd that no world population anywhere managed, over all the centuries of recorded civilization, to achieve herd immunity to viral illnesses such as chickenpox or smallpox? Nope, the darned viruses just managed to keep on inflicting illness and injury and death until vaccines were invented.”

“And how,” I wondered idly, “does anyone, anywhere, propose to ‘shield’ medically-vulnerable populations—elderly and infants, immunocompromised, and those undergoing various medical treatments such as chemotherapy? How does one even begin to accomplish that, when the very people working with those at-risk populations are bopping about, unmasked and not socially-distanced, going to work or attending school, socializing and gathering at sports arenas and Trump rallies?”

I received no answer to these very Spockian-logical questions.

And, “Isn’t it amazing,” I recently noted, as the increasing spread of the more-contagious Delta variant became endlessly newsworthy, “that the authors and signatories of that Great Barrington Declaration never even considered that the damned virus might mutate?! That all those living bodies hosting and incubating the virus might be nothing more, after all, than petri dishes for an increasingly vital, transmuting monster, desperate to survive despite all the mitigations of lockdowns, masks, hand sanitizers, social distancing and vaccines?”

Ignoring these remarks, and responding only to my statement that I was still, and planned to continue, wearing my mask while in public, I was informed that masks only protect others from me; they provide no protection to the wearer. I sighed tiredly and referenced a web page produced by the renowned Mayo Clinic stating that masks and eye protection serve to protect the wearer from inhaling or encountering respiratory droplets released by others. I doubted the page would be read, but I felt a masochistic compulsion to send it, nonetheless. Partnered with that compulsion was an act of simple insanity on my part when I further confessed to still wearing disposable gloves in certain situations, such as while pumping gas or touching ATM or elevator buttons.

Now, it isn’t really possible to hear scathing laughter over the electronic pathways of e-mail, yet I swore I could catch it tumbling down the wires in response to my admission. There was NO possibility, I was informed from the lofty heights of Mt. Know-It-Allus, that one could contract Covid-19 from surface contact—no, not even if one hopped into the car picking one’s nose after pumping that gas! Once more, I exhaled gustily, rolled my eyes, and replied with simple truth: “Have you ever SEEN a report of exactly what bacteria and viruses contaminate those surfaces?! The only thing missing is bubonic plague!”

I may be wearing those disposable gloves until the end of time, let alone the demise of Covid-19.

Hammering my head against a brick wall has never, for some unfathomable reason, been my favorite activity, and yet I seem to have done a lot of it since March, 2020. No matter. I’m vaccinated, masked, gloved, hand-washed and sanitized, socially distanced and surface-disinfected, and have so far been Covid-free. And if apprehension, information, caution, and just plain common sense can keep me that way, then that’s the plan.

If you enjoyed this essay, you might also like “To Wash or Not to Wash: No Question”, last published July 8, 2020, or “Handshake, Schmandshake”, from April 18, 2020.

Political Civility

§  This essay was originally printed in July, 2019.  I’m now (in September, 2020), pre-posting it once more so that it will appear on the day following the Federal elections.  As I do this, I feel almost sick with fright; terror  of what we may see happening in our country on that morning–our country that has not been so divided since the Civil War…  §

In May of 2019 I was dealing with the potentially fatal illness of my favorite pet, holding my head up as I prepared for the possibility of releasing her to her final journey, when a series of hate-filled e-mails sent me into an emotional tailspin. The e-mails had nothing whatever to do with pets or illness or any other life-altering, sad situations.  They were political.

And while facing the possible loss of my favorite cat hadn’t forced tears from my eyes, the e-mails made me weep.

The first contained a graphic that proclaimed:

“We hated Obama like you hate Trump.  Except we hated Obama because he hated America.  You hate Trump because YOU hate America”.

Dismayed and affronted, I nevertheless replied to the e-mail mildly, saying just that I found this very offensive, and asking not be sent anything like it again.

Yet only a short 24 hours later, I received another e-mail, this time referencing those whose political views were similar to mine, alluding to us by name-calling and bullying.  We were, it seems, “Libtards”.  We were “Wingnuts”.

Previous to this, I’d already dealt with and dismissed being derided as a “Snowflake”. Despite knowing that it was not meant as a compliment, I accepted the appellation proudly.  Snowflakes are incredible: intricate, astoundingly beautiful and infinitely individual—created of water, without which life itself cannot exist.  Joined together, snowflakes are capable of creating massive, unstoppable forces for change, such as blizzards and avalanches.

But, hitting me at an already-low point in my life, the abusive invective of these latest e-mails was not something I could shrug off.  Instead, they wounded me at the very wellspring of my heart.

I do not, under any circumstances, ridicule or deride a person by bullying and invective for their political choices.   I firmly insist on being respectful toward the person, even when I just as firmly disagree with their beliefs.  Politically, I consider myself to be an Independent middle-of-the-roader, slightly left-leaning, but always open to civil discourse and the possibility of changing my mind.

I voted for President Barack Obama, and, while I certainly did not approve of everything he did, I thought him to be far from the worst President we had ever seen to that time (after all, I lived through Nixon).

And I did not vote for President Trump.  Like our late, greatly lamented former First Lady, Barbara Bush, I’d been reading about Trump the greedy and unethical businessman, Trump the immoral adulterer, since the early 1980s.  I’d made up my mind about him at that time, and nothing I heard him say, nothing I saw him do, during his campaign, gave me cause to alter my opinion.  Had I been persuaded in that direction, reading the 2016 article, “I Sold Trump $100,000 Worth of Pianos.  Then He Stiffed Me”1  would have sealed my opinion of the man forever.

But nothing, NOTHING, in my judgements about either Trump or Obama signal that I do not love my country.  In fact, my opinions represent exactly what is best about the United States of America: the right to personal convictions.  Liberty.  Freedom of expression.  The right to choose one’s leaders, and to criticize those leaders without fear of retribution or reprisal.  The right to see matters from differing perspectives.  The right—the requirement—to stand up for one’s beliefs.  The requirement to be respectful toward those who believe differently.

But now derision and ridicule, vicious mockery, name-calling, bullying, harassment of and persecuting others for their beliefs have become the standard; have taken the place of civil debate.

And I find that horrifically, painfully sad.  That is not what I have always understood America, or Americans—the concept, nor the reality—to be.

And so, receiving such harassment by e-mail, and already in a saddened state of mind, I wept.

I will never claim that those who have stood with President Trump are in some way un-American.  I will call not call them wingtards or nutjobs or  deplorables, or even, as their own President called them (exulting that  Covid-19 put an end to handshakes), “disgusting people”.  They are merely individuals who hold a different viewpoint, one which I barely understand and with which I very firmly disagree.  But that I do not agree with their choice of leader makes me in no way unAmerican or vile or deplorable, either.  On the contrary, it makes me a true American: one who is unafraid to speak up for her convictions; who accesses her right to freedom of expression, to liberty.

I, an American woman, do not deserve to be made to weep, to be derided and insulted, for my political opinions, least of all through the faceless, cowardly medium of an internet communication.

My right to view and work for and love this wonderful country of ours in the way that I see best is my personal pursuit of happiness.  And I would not have it shadowed by those who demean America by deriding the liberties bestowed by the Constitution upon its citizens.

1https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/09/28/i-sold-trump-100000-worth-of-pianos-then-he-stiffed-me/?utm_term=.6ab2e9c42d4d

If you enjoyed this post, you might also like “29 Things”,
which can be found in the Archives from November 6, 2019.

29 Things

§   With very few exceptions, I have tried to avoid politics in my thoughtful essays.  But since in just under a year we will be electing a President, I offer this catalogue of wishes.  Numerous Presidents in the 20th and 21st centuries have failed in many of these considerations, but only the current President has failed at all of them.   §

  1. I want a President who willingly releases his or her taxes to the American people. 1
  2. I want a President who is totally unconcerned about the number of people who attend the inauguration, knowing that has nothing whatever to do with the actual work of the Presidency. 2
  3. I want a President who will respect and obey the emoluments clause of the Constitution; who will divest him/herself of business interests which might result or appear to result in a potential conflict of interest between the duties of a President and personal gain. 3, a & b
  4. I want a President who knows that “The Buck Stops Here”; who will say, “I take responsibility”. 4
  5. I want a President about whom past business associates cannot claim to have been defrauded of legally-earned payment. 5
  6. I want a President who will fire staff, when necessary, face-to-face, in person, in an appropriate and businesslike manner—not by Tweet. 6, a & b
  7. I want a President who totally eschews name-calling, vicious labels, hate speech, mockery, and all manner of bullying commentary. 7
  8. I want a President who does not pander to nor ingratiate him/herself with dictators or the leaders of oppressive regimes. 8, a & b
  9. I want a President who, to avoid even the slightest appearance of favoritism and to demonstrate truly ethical behavior, does not appoint family members to positions within the administration. 9
  10. I want a President who fully believes that the free American Press is one of the greatest strengths of this republic, and who shows them respect, even when they disagree with and lambaste him or her; who would never, under any circumstances, refer to the press by the fascist label of “Enemy of the People”. 10, a & b
  11. I want a President who recognizes that we are a nation of immigrants, and therefore welcomes those who are fleeing oppression; who takes ultimate responsibility for any separation of refugee parents and children; who would never subject children to prison-like conditions. 11, a & b
  12. I want a President who respects the rights and humanity of LGBTQ individuals. 12
  13. I want a President who issues all national policy in the appropriate businesslike manner, in conjunction with his/her staff, and not by Tweet. 13
  14. I want a President who respects the environment and works to preserve it for the safety and health of both current and future generations; who puts environmental concerns above business and financial interests. 14, a & b
  15. I want a President who demonstrates the utmost respect for the opposite sex; who, if faced with disclosure of past inappropriate speech or behavior toward the opposite sex, does not attempt to minimize the unpardonable behavior as merely “locker room talk”. 15
  16. I want a President who is faithful to his or her spouse. 16
  17. I want a President who behaves with dignity: who would not, under any circumstances, push another world leader aside; who would never, ever turn his or her back upon or walk in front of the Queen of England (not just because she is the Queen, but because she is a 93-year-old woman and deserving of courtesy). 17, a & b
  18. I want a President who will stand in the rain in order to hold the umbrella over his or her spouse.18
  19. I want a President who will not welcome world leaders and representatives to hotels that he or she personally owns, thereby being seen as open to or attempting to create undue influence. 19
  20. I want a President who, if faced with video evidence of a statement made previously, honestly acknowledges his or her words. 20
  21. I want a President who is consistent; who, if reaching new conclusions, states that he or she has done so and presents the logical and factual reasoning behind the reversal. 21 a & b
  22. I want a President who would never, under any circumstances, ask a subordinate to lie in order to protect him/herself. 22, a, b & c
  23. I want a President who travels to visit the military in conflict areas without first being shamed into doing so by military press coverage of his or her failure to appear. 23
  24. I want a President who, if he or she did not personally serve in the military, does not provide a sham and bogus excuse for that lack. 24
  25. I want a President who will stand in the pouring rain to honor the brave men and women who died the World Wars to preserve freedom. 25
  26. I want a President who, despite disagreements, will honor and speak with respect of a fallen comrade; who would never disrespectfully raise the American flag during that individual’s funeral; who will not permit staff to speak rudely of deceased, gracious First Ladies of this country; who will not allow foreign dictators to disparage former American leaders in his or her presence. 26 a, b & c
  27. I want a President who will not obstruct justice. 27
  28. I want a President who will not abandon allies due to a financial conflict of interest.28
  29. I want, in fact, a genuine President: an honorable leader, who will demonstrate dignity, truth, courtesy, kindness, patience, composure, ethics, morality, and, above all, integrity.

 

  1. https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/15/politics/donald-trump-tax-returns-white-house-sarah-sanders/
  2. https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/1/21/14347298/trump-inauguration-crowd-size
  3. https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/IF11086.pdf
    https://www.citizensforethics.org/trumps-ethics-promises-have-not-been-kept
  4. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-donald-trump-russia-blame-20180319-story.html
  5. https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/09/28/i-sold-trump-100000-worth-of-pianos-then-he-stiffed-me/?utm_term=.6ab2e9c42d4d
  6. https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/13/17113950/trump-state-department-rex-tillerson-fired-tweet-twitter
    https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/trump-fired-kirstjen-nielsen-by-tweet
  7. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/01/28/upshot/donald-trump-twitter-insults.html
  8. https://www.npr.org/2017/05/02/526520042/6-strongmen-trumps-praised-and-the-conflicts-it-presents
    https://www.cbsnews.com/news/who-is-viktor-orban-hungary-prime-minister-trump-meeting-white-house-today-2019-05-13/
  9. https://www.thedailybeast.com/meet-the-trump-officials-making-government-a-family-business
  10. https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/10/29/18037894/donald-trump-twitter-media-enemy-pittsburgh
    https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/437610-trump-calls-press-the-enemy-of-the-people
  11. https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/03/06/after-locking-migrant-children-cages-dhs-chief-tells-congress-theyre-not-cages
    https://www.npr.org/2019/03/09/701935587/judge-immigration-must-identify-thousands-more-migrant-kids-separated-from-paren
  12. https://democrats.org/press/15-things-the-trump-administration-has-done-to-roll-back-protections-for-lgbtq-people/
  13. http://time.com/5099544/donald-trump-tweets-first-year/
  14. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/05/02/offshore-drilling-donald-trump-administration-safety-rules/3657752002/
    https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/trump-rsquo-s-epa-made-it-easier-for-coal-plants-to-pollute-waterways/
  15. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/28/us/politics/donald-trump-tape.html
  16. https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-melania-stormy-daniels-affairs-marriages-timeline-2018-3
  17. https://www.nbcnews.com/video/icymi-president-trump-walks-in-front-of-queen-elizabeth-ii-1277051971981
    https://www.cnn.com/2017/05/25/politics/trump-pushes-prime-minister-nato-summit/          
  18. https://people.com/politics/donald-trump-wife-melania-rain-umbrella/
  19. http://time.com/donald-trumps-suite-of-power/
  20. https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2019/04/11/wikileaks-julian-assange-arrest-donald-trump-sot-vpx.cnn
  21. https://www.statnews.com/2019/04/26/trump-vaccinations-measles/
    https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/full-list-donald-trump-s-rapidly-changing-policy-positions-n547801
  22. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/05/barr-not-a-crime-for-trump-to-demand-staffers-lie-to-investigators?verso=true
    https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/mueller-report-release-latest-news/card/1555608005
    https://www.justsecurity.org/62785/trump-told-cohen-lie-congress-collusion-general-not-moscow-tower-deal/
  23. https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2018/10/17/top-senate-democrat-urges-trump-to-visit-troops-fighting-overseas/
  24. https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2019/02/27/trumps-lawyer-no-basis-for-presidents-medical-deferment-from-vietnam/
  25. https://abcnews.go.com/US/trumps-rain-check-honoring-americans-killed-wwi-prompts/story?id=59119504
  26. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2018/08/27/john-mccain-flags-white-house-full-staff/1108717002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/04/06/donald-trump-adviser-roger-stone-mocks-barbara-bush-death-after-book/3386028002/ https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/28/us/politics/trump-biden-north-korea.html
  27. https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/judge-andrew-napolitano-did-president-trump-obstruct-justice
  28. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/10/reminder-trump-has-a-massive-conflict-of-interest-in-turkey/

 

 

 

 

 

The Benefit of the Doubt

∞ Lest I be accused of maligning him, let me state firmly that I don’t think my acquaintance is alone in this sort of behavior; we all—every last living one of us—make assumptions and speak of them as truth. ∞

A friend who is that rare bird, a married gay Trump supporter, attended the Indy Pride festival as a vendor. The following Monday when our group met for our weekly meditation and discussion, he told us that his own vendor booth was quartered directly alongside a “Love” booth. Now, I wasn’t entirely clear, from his description, what this “Love” booth was about: Learning to love and accept the LGBTQ individual in your family, perhaps? Hugs for those who needed them? Methods for the community to demonstrate love and acceptance? His description was vague, and I was a little unclear on that detail as a result.

The point he was making to us, though, was that he wondered at the time, and was still wondering: Had he strolled over to that booth, wearing his MAGA hat, and explained to them his adamant view that Trump is “our greatest President ever”, would the people manning that booth have considered him loveable? He was extremely doubtful, he said, that love would have been their reaction.

Since this comment was not really in line with our group’s purpose and objectives, I didn’t engage with him on his remarks, but they set me to thinking. And although another group member and I used his question as a springboard to open a valuable discussion about what love itself is, and what constitutes unconditional love, I was still bothered by those original remarks.

It took me some days following his comments to tease out from my subconscious what I found distressing in my fellow group member’s original statement, and when I did so, it had nothing at all to do with my feelings about President Trump.  It was twofold: first, that (although, either through a sense of good taste or perhaps self-preservation), my friend wasn’t actually wearing his MAGA hat at the Pride event, he failed to follow through with his idea and actually speak with the people manning that Love booth: state his views, and give them the opportunity to respond. He assumed their likely response. But was he correct? Would they have rejected him outright? Might some of the participants have done so, but not others? Would they have said (as I have been known to do), “I don’t have to like someone to love them. I don’t have to approve of a person’s views to love the person. I don’t have to agree with someone to acknowledge that they are a child of the Divine.”

The second factor that bothered me was that, having not given these people the opportunity to prove their point, to demonstrate that they were living up to the ideals they promulgated, he then spoke of them to us when they weren’t present to defend themselves; making all of us doubt them and their good intentions.

Now, lest I be accused myself of disparaging my friend, let me point out that I don’t think he is alone in this sort of behavior, either; we all—every last living one of us—do this sort of thing.

And it’s wrong.

When we have doubts regarding the genuine intentions of another, or the likelihood that an individual will follow through on their stated good intentions; when we are cynical of their motives, or hesitant of their integrity, we have not just the choice, but the perhaps the responsibility, to bring our suspicions into the light of their attention, and provide them the opportunity to respond. We have the responsibility to give them the benefit of the doubt, for that demonstrates our own integrity. And should we fail to give people the chance to prove themselves to us, then we really have no right to speak badly of them, especially if they aren’t present to defend themselves.

There are exceptions to this general rule, of course. Public figures, celebrities, well-known speakers and teachers, often promulgate positions to which many of us respond with a disparaging, “Yeah, right, sure”.  We then state our opinions that their stances are, to put it bluntly, a crock. That is sometimes the price of being in the public eye: you have to take the heat of the kitchen.  Being doubted or criticized, unfairly or not, is a requirement of fame.  The question then becomes not so much one of our having stated our views about a public figure’s supposed lack of integrity, but whether, if they later prove themselves, we ourselves have the moral fiber to willingly admit, “I was wrong. They honestly did believe, behave, as they said they would. I’m sorry I doubted them.”

Personally, having swung on the pendulum from being quite naïve to somewhat cynical, I now must admit that I’ve been especially bad about this sort of behavior.  Recognizing it from my friend’s remarks has been a wake-up call to myself. It’s time for me to begin living up to my own standards, and giving others not just the benefit of the doubt, but the opportunity to prove me wrong in my suppositions about their behavior and beliefs.

I’ll always wonder now about how the workers manning that “Love” both might have reacted to my acquaintance, had he followed through on his notion and approached them with his views. I’d like to think that some of them, at least, would have shrugged and said, “Hey, you’re entitled to your opinions. It doesn’t mean that we can’t love you.”

After all, I don’t agree with his beliefs, either, but I still love him.

Political Civility

~ I have intentionally avoided politics in my thoughtful blog, but with respect to the real reasons we celebrate Independence Day tomorrow, I offer this essay. I hope that, no matter what your political views, you will have the courage to read it all the way through. ~

 I was dealing with the potentially-fatal illness of my favorite pet, barely keeping my head above churning emotional waters as I prepared for the possibility of releasing her to her final journey, when a series of hate-filled e-mails sent me into an emotional tailspin. The e-mails had nothing whatever to do with pets or illness or any other life-altering, sad situations. They were political.

And while facing the loss of my favorite cat hadn’t forced tears from my eyes, the e-mails made me weep.

The first contained a graphic that proclaimed:

“We hated Obama like you hate Trump. Except we hated Obama because he hated America. You hate Trump because YOU hate America”.

Dismayed and affronted, I nevertheless replied to the e-mail mildly, saying just that I found this untrue, and very offensive, and asking not be sent anything like it again.

Yet less than 24 hours later, I received another e-mail, this time referencing those whose political views were similar to mine, alluding to us by name-calling and bullying. We were, it seems, “Libtards”. We were “Wingnuts”.

I’d long since dealt with and dismissed being derided as a “Snowflake”. Despite knowing it was not meant as a compliment, I accepted the appellation proudly. Snowflakes are some of the most incredible creations of Nature: intricately formed, astoundingly beautiful and infinitely individual; wrought into beauty from water, without which life itself cannot exist. Joined together, snowflakes are capable of creating massive, unstoppable forces for change, such as blizzards and avalanches.

But, hitting me at an already-low point in my life, the abusive invective of these latest e-mails was not something I could shrug off or transliterate into a positive. Instead, they wounded me at the very wellspring of my heart.

I have been heard to make sour jokes about politicians whom I do not like, but I do not, under any circumstances, speak  ridicule, insults or derision to another person regarding their political choices. I firmly insist on behaving respectfully about their opinions, even when I just as firmly disagree with them. Politically, I consider myself to be an Independent middle-of-the-roader, slightly left-leaning, but always open to civil discourse and the possibility of changing my mind.

I voted for President Barack Obama, and, while I certainly did not approve of everything he did, I thought him to be both dignified and definitely far and away from being the worst President we had ever seen to that time (after all, I’d  lived through Nixon).

And I did not vote for President Trump. Like our late, greatly lamented former First Lady, Barbara Bush, I’d been reading about Donald Trump–the unscrupulous, unethical businessman; the serial adulterer; the scoundrel who did not sacrifice home, career and family to go to Canada for his convictions, but relied on a medical falsehood to evade the Vietnam draft–reading this and more since the mid-1980s. I’d made up my mind about the man at that time, and nothing I heard him say, nothing I saw him do, during his campaign, gave me cause to alter my opinion. Had I been persuaded in that direction, reading the 2016 article, “I Sold Trump $100,000 Worth of Pianos. Then He Stiffed Me”1 would have sealed my opinion of the man forever.

But nothing, NOTHING, in my judgement about now-President Trump, nor former President Obama, signals that I do not love my country! In fact, my opinions represent exactly what is best about the United States of America: the right to personal convictions. Liberty. Freedom of expression. The right to choose one’s leaders, and to criticize those leaders without fear of retribution or reprisal. The right to see matters from differing perspectives. The right—the requirement—to stand up for one’s beliefs. The requirement to be respectful of those who believe differently.

But now derision and ridicule, vicious mockery, name-calling, bullying, harassment and persecution of others for their beliefs have become the standard, the norm; have taken the place of civil discourse and reasonable debate.  I find that shocking and heartbreaking. That is not what I have always understood America, or Americans—the concept, nor the reality—to be.

And so, receiving such harassment by e-mail, and already in a saddened state of mind, I wept.

I will never claim that those who stand with President Trump are in some way un-American.  I will not stand before them calling them wingtards or nutjobs or even deplorables. They are simply individuals who hold a different viewpoint, one with which I resolutely, unshakably disagree; one which I do not even understand. But that I do not agree with their choice of leader makes me in no way un-American or vile or deplorable, either. On the contrary, it makes me a true American: one who is unafraid to speak up for her convictions; who accesses her right to freedom of expression, to liberty.

I, an American woman, do not deserve to be made to weep, to be derided and insulted, for my political opinions, least of all through the faceless, cowardly medium of an internet communication.

My right to view and work for and love this wonderful country of ours in the way that I see best is my personal pursuit of happiness. And I would have it unshadowed by those who demean America by deriding the liberties bestowed by the Constitution upon its citizens.

1https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/09/28/i-sold-trump-100000-worth-of-pianos-then-he-stiffed-me/?utm_term=.6ab2e9c42d4d