Credit: Herald Net
The family table during the holidays has become a proxy battle for the ongoing brutal, vicious culture war in the United States that has dramatically accelerated during the Trump presidency. The “angry uncle” sharing conspiracy theories on how voter fraud tipped the scales in the midterms for the Democrats, the blindsided parents apoplectic over their children’s rejection of capitalism and the maga bro giddy over “owning the libs” are all likely tropes to emerge as the day ends in resentment, division and copious leftovers.
Climate change, immigration, #metoo, identity politics, #abolishICE, gun control, Brett Kavanaugh, protectionism, globalism, socialism and capitalism have been just some of the flashpoints this year where judgements of one’s morality are made based on political views. People of opposing sides no longer merely hold divergent views and agree to disagree, they see their opponents as morally deficient for disagreeing. We gladly caricature our opposition as cartoonish villains. We have no starting point to even begin a civil debate given the impenetrable bubbles we occupy in consuming our news. Oftentimes, such partisan stories can be distortions, manipulations of facts, conspiracy theories or outright lies as we begin to reckon with an environment where, as Barack Obama once described, “everything is true and nothing is true.”
For this complex societal problem, where hatred simmers and boils under a thin veneer of angry, passionate discussion, and where no shared sense of truth exists, one can find blame on both sides. It is no secret at this point that Donald Trump has lied countless times throughout his presidency. He claims he would have won the popular vote had it not been for widespread voter fraud in 2016. He said thousands of people did not die when Hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico, while a study from George Washington University indicated that nearly 3,000 people on the island lost their lives. He has further committed to the climate of anger and polarization in this country through divisive policies, namely in the area of immigration. The caravan saga is just the beginning of instances where Trump has embraced pandering exclusively to his hard-core supporters over what is perhaps the most controversial issue of our era. In an interview with the Atlantic, Trump adviser and immigration hawk Stephen Miller, basically admitted that the administration’s family separation policy at the border, which proved to be both toxic and disturbing, was designed in part to generate maximum outrage among liberals and progressives.
However, conservatives are not exclusively at fault over this phenomenon. Elements of the far, hard left have embraced doxing (revealing one’s sensitive private information online for targeted harassment) as a means of political warfare. In the latest example of this disturbing trend, protesters converged on Fox News Anchor Tucker Carlson’s Washington DC home earlier this month in the dead of night, shouting, “Tucker Carlson, we will fight! We know where you sleep at night.” Conservative figures have faced verbal abuse at the hands of political opponents at restaurants. Increasingly more university students look down upon free speech.
I fear that for these trends of division, anger and tribalism will continue in the long term for several years, even decades. They began long before Donald Trump was president and they have accelerated as political issues have been increasingly defined in moral terms where each side seeks absolute victory in totally crushing their opposition. These trends will by no means end overnight (even if my prediction may be somewhat pessimistic). This Thanksgiving let us try to remember that in spite of all this, we have families who we love. Healthcare reform will not be solved once the dishes are cleared. This is not a call to check out of politics entirely. Indeed, the current climate of anger only exists due to deep problems in the American political system, along with several recent policy decisions by our political elites which have generated anger and fear among vast swaths of the American populace. To begin to confront those problems, with a rightfully engaged citizenry however, we should not direct hatred toward one another, especially those who are closest to us.
