Americans Who Don't Hate Each Other?
Existential reflections on a message that still matters, now more than ever
Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump is helped off the stage at a campaign event in Butler, Pa., on Saturday, July 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
When I launched my site almost two months ago, intermingled with the expected feelings of anxiety and excitement, I felt something else: a nagging disconnect. First, it was less than six months from an election that was being portrayed as if the fate of civilization rested upon its outcome. Yet, there was only a glancing reference to the election in my announcement post and none at all in my launch post.
That trend has continued. In my subsequent entries, there has been but one more offhand allusion to the scorched earth campaign that has been consuming the U.S. I’ve been writing exposition pieces about a new political philosophy, while those who dictate our national narrative are issuing admonitions about the future of democracy.
Second, I was launching a site called Americans Who Don’t Hate Each Other during an American presidential election, the U.S. Olympics of political hate. I felt like I was writing in a placid bubble world, while outside, in the real one, a hurricane of hatred raged. It was like I was an oblivious professor, imparting rational concepts to a smattering of students in a mostly empty lecture hall, while the majority were tearing apart the campus in the course of revolution or resistance. Like I was some kind of guru leading an encounter group to a serene wilderness mecca while, all around us, the forest burned.
Those feelings returned Saturday evening, as I was finishing off the article I was planning for publication on Tuesday, another explainer about another aspect of my big, new idea. News broke that former President Trump had been shot at his campaign rally in Butler, PA.
Suddenly, writing about the finer points of cooperative governance didn’t seem like making an argument for an alternative political system. It felt like living in an alternate reality.
When a U.S. president comes within centimeters of assassination at a political rally, the phrase Americans who don’t hate each other rings empty. When a former and possibly future Commander-in-Chief is shot in the head, the vision of a vibrant, active social movement composed of Americans who don’t hate each other seems like an even bigger delusion.
Yet, AWDHEO has been warning of the conditions surrounding Saturday’s attack. Here’s a sampling of statistics that I cited in my launch post: a 2022 NBC News poll found that more than 70% of Democrats and Republicans think the other side “poses a threat that if not stopped will destroy America as we know it;” a 2019 study titled “Lethal Mass Partisanship” found that 60% from both parties believe their counterparts in the other party are “a serious threat to the United States and its people,” and 20% from each party believe America would be “better off as a country” if millions from the other side “just died.”
This is the kind of climate in which somebody tries to kill a president.
My follow-up piece addressed the devastating power of negative political oratory, which some partially blame for the attempt on Trump’s life. It also explained why parties and partisans resort to these verbal onslaughts:
But, there’s a reason why Johnson tied Goldwater to the specter of Armageddon, just as there’s a reason why Bush linked Dukakis to the incidence of heinous, criminal acts. They knew it would work.
You see, civil, constructive arguments that elevate our discourse don’t attract massive attention and ignite people’s emotions. And they don’t mobilize a candidate’s supporters to take actions that lead to political victory.
Claiming that the opposition’s ideas will lead to the end of humanity or the terrorizing of local communities is a lot more conducive to winning. It evokes fear and loathing, which powers fundraising, inspires volunteers and activists, and gets base voters to the polls.
A subsequent article built upon this point, noting the evolution and escalation of partisan rhetoric that has taken place in the modern era:
But, if you really want to ramp things up, you can attack your opponents’ intentions. In other words, instead of saying that your opponents’ ideas are bad, you essentially say that their ideas are bad, and it’s all part of their evil plan. You attribute sinister motivations to their policies and claim that they are meant to hurt certain groups….
There’s a difference between saying your opponents have done harmful things that should disqualify them from their positions and claiming, in effect, that their intention is to use their positions to harm people or that they consort with entities who intend to harm people. These are the kind of accusations that people in these scary times get scared into believing, especially avid partisans, who instinctively think the worst of their political adversaries.
But, it wasn’t an AWDHEO post that ran through my head when the news came across Saturday night. It was something I had written long before.
Aside from its aspirations to become a launchpad for a brand new kind of social movement, AWDHEO is also a vehicle to promote my coming book, The Anti-Partisan Manifesto. It was a section of the Manifesto that came to mind Saturday because it gets to the root of how the U.S. has gotten to this point. It speaks so directly to the matter that I’m going to change my plan and quote extensively from the book before its release is formally announced:
Seen in this light, the ultra-partisan approach to politics and life in the U.S. becomes entirely understandable. If unity isn’t a consideration, then why wouldn’t parties and partisans pursue their objectives guided by an ends-justifies-the-means philosophy? If unity isn’t a consideration, why wouldn’t they distort their opponents’ proposals, intentions, and beliefs? If unity isn’t a consideration, why wouldn’t they attribute malice to the other sides’ policies by interpreting them in the worst possible way? If unity isn’t a consideration, why wouldn’t parties and partisans then take those worst-possible-interpretations and link them to the most sinister bogeymen? If unity isn’t a consideration, why wouldn’t each side subtly or not-so-subtly communicate the message that the other side doesn’t just have awful policy plans, they’re also awful people who have awful followers? If unity isn’t a consideration, then why wouldn’t partisans strive to impose a world that their side would find blissful, but the other side would find unbearable?
In fact, given that unity isn’t a consideration, it would actually be illogical for factions to conduct themselves in anything other than a thoroughly partisan manner. Their goal is to win elections and public policy battles. Viewed through this lens, partisans shouldn’t seek common ground with their political foes. They should seek to annihilate them, especially since they have concluded that their foes are wicked people who support wicked policies based on wicked beliefs.
And because partisans see their political foes as evil, taking ultra-partisan actions to oppose them is not just a rational response but also a moral imperative because those foes pose an existential threat to everything partisans hold dear. Theoretically, this could justify not only normal hyper-partisanship, but extralegal tactics such as cheating and even violence. After all, if their foes constitute a mortal danger, what choice do kindred partisans of goodwill have but to rise up and oppose them, by whatever means are necessary?1
This is where we are now because unity is no longer a consideration. This is where we are because partisans believe their own propaganda, especially when it’s about their opponents.
The last quote may come from The Anti-Partisan Manifesto, but the last line could have been from Trump’s shooter’s manifesto. “If their foes constitute a mortal danger, what choice do kindred partisans have but to rise up and oppose them, by whatever means are necessary?”
Americans who don’t hate each other must offer a better option and a better answer, or there will be more events like the one Saturday night.
* Portions of this post have been adapted from my upcoming book The Anti-Partisan Manifesto: How Parties and Partisanism Divide America and How to Shut Them Down (2024).
** AWDHEO will be back tomorrow with its regularly scheduled, weekly entry
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