The Politics of Coping
We had dinner last night with the husband and son of one of Kim’s old Los Angeles friends. Neither of us knew them very well, but there was history and they were in New York on business, so we met them for dinner. What we did know about this man was that he was in commercial real estate and that he was from Orange County. Normally, that would not make for a definitive political leaning, but in this case we were pretty sure that he leaned red. We were unclear of how red his leanings, so we decided to just stay away from the topic of politics. At one point we got talking about my writing. He asked for my blog address, which I gave him, but then I found myself cautioning him about the political leanings that I tend to express in many of my stories. He took it in stride and that caused me to go on and say that I was looking forward to helping San Diego see the blue light of change. I told him our congressman was Duncan Hunter, the Republican Congressman who pled guilty to conspiracy to misuse campaign funds, having tried to scrape it all off onto his wife and then succumbing to the mountain of evidence against him. Naturally, he claimed that it was all a big Democratically-led conspiracy to discredit him. Words like “Witch Hunt” were not-so-creatively used.
The issue of how to deal with the dramatic divide in our nation over politics shows no signs of abating. We therefore all probably have to develop our coping strategies. I have a picture on my office wall that I clipped from a magazine twenty-five years ago at a moment of high anxiety. It shows a cowboy carrying a heavy saddle on his shoulder and it says, “Some men never compromise, they cope.” I have always liked that sentiment even though it came from a Copenhagen smokeless tobacco ad and I’ll bet that cowboy voted for Trump. The idea is that you don’t have to compromise your principles to make things move forward, but it may require you to cope with the existence of differing views. I take that as my guiding light in these troubled times. If someone strongly believes in limiting immigration, I don’t agree, but I can cope with that view (so long as they are not uncaring about the separation of families and caging of children). If someone wants lower taxes for the wealthy and for libertarian reasons, I may not agree, but I can cope (so long as they do not want to gut the social services programs including Obamacare and Medicare/Medicaid).
If people want to disagree that President Trump’s actions around Ukraine are wrong and need to be policed going forward, but do not rise to an impeachable offense, I do not agree, but I can cope (so long as they do not spout blatant partisan lies and avoid any admission of wrongdoing). This is where I find myself drawing my coping lines. There is room for honest disagreement, but not for partisan lies and blatant lack of accountability. How things are done matters. I have generally said that I can forgive anyone who voted for Trump because it is fair to think they wanted change and that his message of draining the swamp is a valid goal. I have a much harder time defending people who continue to support him on his record and manner of conducting himself.
I have wondered what I would settle for in order to have Trump removed from office. There are many who want nothing less than incarceration for him and his whole gang of misfits, including some of his children. While I will admit to not objecting to that outcome, I am hard pressed to demand it. The bottom line is that I would settle for his removal from office at the end of this first term, so another year of Trump, and allowing him to go free while the Republicans put up another candidate like Nikki Haley to run against whomever the Democrats nominate. I know that many Democrats don’t like this route because it opens the door too widely for Republicans to hold the presidency and they really do feel Trump deserves some serious punishment for his wrongs.
We are always finding ourselves in a position where we are sitting down with friends or acquaintances (luckily all our family members have come across from the dark side into the light) who are red in their orientation. I like to debate the fundamental policy issues to see if I can get some acknowledgement that self-interest should extend past what feels good today. I find those discussions energizing because I feel very confident in the righteousness of my view. But I am equally perturbed and troubled by discussions with people who take the standard Republican line of deflection, avoidance and misinformation. Watching Devin Nunes say that he can’t recall whether he spoke with Lev Parnas when the phone logs clearly show he has, doesn’t constitute an argument or even a logical stand, it’s about deflection, avoidance, misinformation and saying whatever you must say and doing whatever you must do. These are infuriatingly impossible to respect approaches to political life where lying has no consequences.
That may be the biggest problem Trump has created for the U.S. (and maybe the world). Lying is hardly something new to the world and certainly not new in politics, but Trump has taken the art to a new level and has normalized lying and manipulation of facts to the point where it’s hard for anyone to believe anything they see or hear. That is a narrative that suits Trump very well. He prefers the cult of personality where people take what he says as truth and question everything else. He has indeed told his followers to do exactly that. I believe that’s the same approach used by Jim Jones as he marched his lemmings off the edge of the Kool-aide bowl in Guyana.
Kim is actually less tolerant of people with strong conservative and red views. It might be her luxury as a performer that gives her that attitude or it might be her advocacy of extreme love and acceptance that does it. I just know that I can tell when she has checked out of a dinner conversation due to political views she vehemently disavows. If all she did was check out, that might be defined as coping, but she tends to make her strong disagreement known. I am capable of that also, but it simply takes more to drive me to the point of disconnecting with a person I am seated with at dinner. The good news is that we have all mostly figured out in these times how to handle these sorts of situations since they seem to come up more and more every day.
When I told my Orange County Republican friend that I was looking to turn San Diego bluer, that was on this side of the line. Had I gone on to say that I wanted to emulate his fine county as he had so successfully dragged them into a blue posture, I would have gone over the line and probably outed his true feelings. I didn’t do that and I’m glad. I may not compromise, but I do know how to cope.
