Whatever It Takes
“Are you kidding me? You guys are all corrupt.”
Sounds like politics. Not this time. The words are those of a tennis player at the recent Australian Open complaining to the umpire about a ruling just made. In the mind of the player, the ruling wasn’t just wrong or a mistake. The umpire was corrupt, part of the corrupt system running the sport for the benefit of the better players and more revenue.
But it might just as well have been about politics. Many of us attribute results we don’t like to a rigged system and politicians being corrupt. The sentiment in an email copied to me recently is not unusual. “Both parties … are all a bunch of crooks, connivers, malcontents and shitheads.”
Republicans, Democrats, liberals, conservatives, all indulge in the attack on politics. The bad guys vary depending on the speaker, but the stories taken together implicate everyone. What the public at large hears is that everyone is corrupt.
Both Bernie Sanders in his call for a “political revolution”, and Donald Trump in his claim that the system is “rigged” and Washington is a “swamp” that needs to be “drained”, channeled those feelings in the 2016 race for president. Voters responded in large numbers to both.
There has always been fertile ground for the story of political corruption. General skepticism of politicians is part of human history and embedded in popular culture.
Among the ancients, Aesop noted, “We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office.” We love Robin Hood, the ultimate outsider who comes to the aid of those “despoiled by a great baron or a rich abbot or a powerful esquire.” A book I recently read offhandedly described a creek as “crooked enough to run for public office.”
Two thigs have changed. The rhetoric is increasingly vehement. The attack on politics and politicians is led by politicians seeking to tap into the public’s skepticism. Candidates cast themselves as outsiders. John Dean’s slogan in 2004, “take back our government,” has become commonplace.
Leaders across the political spectrum tell us the other actors on the political stage can’t be trusted. The audience has decided none can be trusted.
After doing separate focus groups with Democrats and Republicans to gauge political attitudes, the New York Times concluded, “what unites the left and the right is a mistrust in people at the top.”
If no one can be trusted and the “system” is corrupt, is there a solution short of revolution, insurrection and blowing the whole thing up? As the rhetoric escalates, many think not. In a recent poll by the Washington Post and the University of Maryland almost one in three Americans said that violence against government can be justified, the largest share to express that view in the more than 20 years the question has been asked, rising across the board, among Republicans, Democrats and Independents.
As one respondent put it, “It’s a war between good and evil.”
A man in the audience at a conservative rally last November asked, “When do we get to use the guns? … How many elections are they going to steal before we kill these people?” The audience applauded.
There was a record high 9,600 threats against members of Congress last year.
Fear of what the other will do becomes mutually reinforcing. The chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin writes, “Republicans will stop at nothing to hold onto power.” A Republican member of Congress writes, “Democrats will do anything to CHEAT during an election.”
When we believe that democracy itself is at risk, the motivation to do “whatever it takes” to avoid the abyss becomes stronger.
As a leader of one progressive group said, “We are not concerned with the process. We are concerned with the outcome.” An attitude that has been around since the ancient Greeks, captured in the line from Sophocles’ Electra, “The end excuses any evil.”
The calculation of means and ends is not simple and never static. Some ends justify some means. The means, however, have to be part of the calculation. If we come to the place where the means don’t matter anymore, the goal justifies every action. Whatever it takes. Force becomes the final choice. As the man in the audience asked, “When do we get to use our guns?”
In a second change in recent years, the attack on trust used so effectively against the opposing party is now also directed against opponents within one’s party.
Following the example of Trump, the rhetoric of Republicans against their own is particularly harsh. “Betrayal … traitor … dog … fool … coward … idiot … a curse on the Party” are words all recently hurled. The issue is one of loyalty.
The rhetorical battle on the Democratic side is about representation. Representatives of the “people” against “corporatists” who have “sold out” to money interests, lost touch with their constituents, and done nothing to help the communities they came from.
Among the messages in my inbox from groups here in Wisconsin were these:
“We have the opportunity now to … take power BACK from corporate politicians … Democratic National Committee friendly millionaires with no platform …”
“They know their lifetime of pillaging and exploitation could be coming to an end soon. … Wall Street CEOs, hedge funders, and Democratic corporate megadonors … will stop at nothing …the more scared they get, the more desperate they’ll become.”
Personal attacks are used because they work. For whatever reason, perhaps it is the human condition, we are more prone to believe an accusation than a defense. “I didn’t do it” doesn’t resonate. The attacks are also what gets covered by the media, particularly if the fight, as one columnist noted, “promises to be tacky, unhinged and entertaining.”
The problem with all this is the same problem we run into with other activities. Actions taken by individuals to advance their own interests can hurt the community at large. Even though individual campaigns may be won by impugning the other’s judgment, motive and character, the “system” takes a hit. Trust is destroyed and along with it the ability to converse and work toward a common goal.
Democracy is built on a sense of shared community. Some level of trust is required. In each other and in our institutions. If we want to save democracy, we have to rebuild trust.
That is a long journey. Where might be a place to begin with a chance of some progress. A first small step might be with other Democrats. Avoid the personal attacks and the attacks on the system. Debate the issues, but lower the rhetoric and withhold judgment on motives. Respect differences and focus on solutions.
That might be asking for the impossible, but if we can’t build trust with each other, how can we ask others to trust us? If we can succeed in increasing trust within our own Party, perhaps we can then start to rebuild trust by others in us and in the political process.
Here, it might be appropriate to add, “Whatever it takes.” Even some self-restraint. The goal justifies the effort even though it might not be exciting or get much media attention. Self-restraint, that is.
Douglas Kane is the author of "Our Politics: Reflections on Political Life" published in 2019 by Southern Illinois University Press
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