Held in Contempt
My decision to stop self-identifying as a Democrat was a little heartbreaking. My parents were yellow-dog Dems and we were raised to be wary of Republicans and to treat other people as our equals, no matter their circumstances. This is saying something when you live in the Deep South, born in the middle of the last century.
I think the straw that broke the camel’s back was when the Democrats, in a spectacular act of hollow virtue-signaling, forced Al Franken out of the Senate.
Now, at the age of 70, I find that I am no longer comfortable self-identifying as a liberal. I can’t handle the orthodoxy, which has become overbearing for me. I have become impatient with the smugness of many of my “liberal” friends, a tendency which has become ubiquitous since the rise of the MAGA movement. It seems that we now have a justification for our self-righteousness.
Don’t get me wrong, I think we are “right,” from a policy perspective. And I vote. But everyone has become so entrenched that I find the only public figures who resonate with me are iconoclasts. I will forever be grateful that Jon Stewart came back on the scene when this endless election cycle began.
Which brings me to today. I am a paying member of Medium. I sometimes write little stories and publish them. I think I have nine followers. An article chosen by the Medium staff as one of today’s “highlights” caught my attention. This is not surprising as it had a hot-button title. Hot buttons are about 90% of “news coverage” these days.
The piece was written as a first-person account of a day in the life of a MAGA guy. He lives in small-town Alabama. In a mobile home. Of course he does. He is a misogynist, racist, poorly educated. Of course he is. Can we identify with this person? Of course we can’t. What do we feel toward this man? Contempt.
Perhaps there are moments of grace in the day of this fictional man, but we don’t hear about that. We don’t engage him in conversation. We retreat to our facebook pages and become keyboard warriors. Maybe we refuse to shop at Hobby Lobby, but that does not make us agents of change. Let’s keep flying those virtue banners while Rome burns.
Like the right-wing media, the left-wing media has become an echo chamber. We are talking only to each-other.
As Martin Luther King wrote, “You can have no influence over those for whom you have underlying contempt.”
And yet we repeat “how did we get here????” There’s not a simple answer to that question, but I’ll betcha it’s not all on the other guy. Yes, I am aware of the irony that progressive policies would improve the lives of many Americans who are trapped by their circumstances, who fundamentally feel a sense of shame and so attach themselves to a demagogue who makes them feel better for a second, before they get back to the grind.
Maybe we should talk to them about that.
