Divided and Conquered

I'm picking up on teacherken's excellent Guilt by Association diary this morning. I needed to ask a few more questions about this.

What happens when we permanently shun those who offend us, or those with whom we strongly disagree?

This question is in reference to the flawed logic that when one of our political candidates is discovered as having an association with a person who has said or done something controversial, the only acceptable course of action is to denounce and reject one's ties with that person forever.

Representative of this would be Hillary Clinton's assertion that "You can choose your pastor" and that "I would have left." This of course, an assertion that Barack Obama should have left his church after the Reverend Jeremiah Wright made remarks that some, including Obama, found offensive.  

I don't deny that sometimes the nature of a politician's association with someone is fair game for questioning and exploration by the public and the media. It's fine that people who found Rev. Wright's remarks offensive needed to ask Senator Obama about his feelings about the remarks. (I for one find the media demonization of Wright far more offensive than Wright's own angry remarks about a country that would, actually, demonize a man of God for expressing his anger over racism.)

In response to the public anxiety over Wright, Senator Obama shared his point of view and his feelings in what was one of the most honest and uplifting speeches on race in this country by a politician in my life time. Obama actually gave the public far more personal information about his own feelings and relationship to Wright than they were probably even entitled to.

What troubles me here is that despite all of this information, there is an ongoing widespread assumption - taken fully for granted in the media and exploited by Hillary Clinton - that Obama's relationship with the Reverent Wright is a net liability to him, despite the tremendous service Wright has done for his parish and his country. Even more outrageous is the notion that once Obama heard about those remarks, he should have rejected not only the Reverend, but the entire church. And few seem to challenge that kind of thinking. But teacherken does:

I would hope that a candidate for president could make the case that s/he is capable of associating with people whom s/he does not like on some even very important issues without having to assume responsibility for those issues or actions.  After all, as a President s/he will have to deal with leaders and nations some of whose actions and words are even more noxious than anything attributed to an Ayers, a Wright, a Bob Jones, a Jerry Falwell, a Pat Robertson, a John Hagee . . . you can mentally add names to this list.  We deal with such foreign leaders and nations because they are part of the reality of the world and we cannot pretend that they do not exist, nor will ignoring them necessarily result in changes to the behavior we find so obnoxious.   Obama is correct when he says we need to engage them diplomatically, that to so is a sign of our strength, and is the most likely way we are likely to be able to encourage change in ways that are constructive.

How can we expect such leadership from a President who is unwilling or afraid to act similarly on a more personal level, or who fears interacting with those whose words are problematic or even hateful and despicable. How can we hope to change our society for the better when we reject persons as distinct from rejecting the words and actions we despise?

I wrote this follow up diary because I have to ask, on a more personal level, do we naturally shun those we disagree with, Republicans, Clinton supporters and Obama supporters? Do we forever disassociate ourselves from our fellow citizens because they have W stickers on their cars or wear Hillary t-shirts?

I can see this in my own behavior. For example, when I see someone outwardly supporting the Bush administration, in my mind a light goes out. I can't imagine having any kind of reasonable exchange of ideas with them. I don't want to engage or associate with them - even though they live around the corner from me.

So in my day to day life, I can see how American politics is essentially the Divide and Conquer game. Create wedge issues, split the electorate, try to spin things to win as many over to your side as possible and marginalize and invalidate the other side of the debate as much as you can, using the tactics of contempt, caricature, and disrespect. We can blame the Republicans for introducing these tactics - I would - but the same thing has happened in the Democratic party, which was clearly depicted in the "red state/blue state" mentality that dominated our own tactics for so long. What I mean is, when we focus on only the states we can win or the voters who already agree with us, we deepen the divide and maybe we inadvertently shun everyone else.

And maybe that's our problem. We cut off the people who offend us when we need to communicate with them. If we don't sustain any kind of relationship with people who think differently, we don't do any service to at least promoting tolerance and understanding of different viewpoints.

I see that in my lifetime, my tolerance and understanding of Conservative values has really dwindled. I never held those values, but I once had a better understanding of how people could hold them. I wonder if I'm not the only one who feels differently now.

I fear we've been divided and conquered.

As long as we stay entrenched and divided, our information about the world is going to continue to come from suspect sources - like a profit-driven media and 527s with big bankrolls and narrow agendas.

I'd rather talk to that guy with the W sticker, I think, even though it would be hard to hide my incredulity at how anyone could still sport one in this day and age. I'd rather hear what he had to say than just cut him off, especially if there was a chance that I'd get listened to and that we could both feel less, well, hateful, towards each other.

I'm going to try.