My favorite feature (ever) was a pull-out poster of King Kong atop the Empire State Building, swatting at airplanes and looking more menacing than terrifying. What made this poster special was that it came with paper goggles with one red and one blue lens so the wearer could enjoy the image in 3D. Planes more narrowly escaping the behemoth fingers or the massive primate fangs, it was just a little more exciting when seen through those glasses.
But, it was a fairly cheap trick. The poster was black and white with strategically out-of-register red and blue line work that tricked your brain into a false sense of depth. This was 2D ink on paper -- nothing more than an optical illusion fooling your stereo vision by making your right or left eye blind to either the red or blue printed on the paper.
That poster and goggles probably landed in the strata of a landfill somewhere between California or New York decades ago. But the experience of the 3D illusion has stayed with me and metastasized into a very sad analogy.
Too many of us can only see the world through red and blue goggles. This is apparent in social media when people trumpet their political leanings, sharing posts, articles and memes vilifying people, candidates (who are often people too) or ideas that don't fall within their favored end of the political spectrum. The polarization everyone is decrying in the media has been created by everyone aware of the problem. The Pogo comic quote has never been more appropriate: "We have met the enemy, and he is us." (Walt Kelly, Pogo, 1971)
If you think Obama ruined this country or that Trump could make it great again, you're as delusional as everyone who though Bernie would save us or that Hillary was the most qualified candidate ever to run for president. Those are all false narratives, campaign fluff and fodder. Propagating them does not make you smarter or more sophisticated than a person propagating the opposite belief or opinion, it makes you the same.
It must be disheartening to attend a Bernie town-hall meeting and see someone wearing an NRA cap, or a Trump rally and rub elbows with an occupier. Tolerance is as much an illusion as my 3D poster if we won't allow ourselves to see actual depth, or accept anyone who one might agrees with less than 100% of our own beliefs. We accept the notion that states are somehow red or blue, and all the people in them are as well - believing that Texas is chock full of gun toting loons and Vermont shuts down for communist parades every May Day. (Spoiler: Texas has commies, and Vermont has militia fringe groups.)
Oh, but the rhetoric of the pundits! Those crazy, stupid things they say, and how frightening it is when a person trying to become President of the United States says anything like (insert quote here), because that is absolutely outrageous, and "if you're not outraged, you're not paying attention."
How about a new slogan: If you're outraged all the time, STOP "paying attention" and get some perspective. The only good thing about being outraged all the time is that nature has a way of taking you out early and ending the misery caused by you being outraged all the time. Which is to say, it's not healthy to have that sort of stress and it will shorten your life.
Here is a little perspective: most of the people who run for President don't become President. This is true of both parties and strictly inevitable for people in third parties or independents. One person wins, the rest are actually no closer to becoming President than you or me once the election is over. Sure, they're more famous than you for a while, but only a political geek could name more than a couple failed candidacies from more than one or two elections ago.
Then, anyone who becomes President has to deal with some very unfortunate realities. There's congress, the constitution, the electoral process, gravity, weather, karma, the Hand of God, etc. -- no magic wand is handed to the President upon completing the oath of office. The only thing that happens when a President decides to run outside of the boundaries of the branches of power or laws of physics, is failure. The scale and spectacle of their failure depends on how long or far they manage to go before anyone notices, or catches them. The position is equal parts spotlight and microscope, with very little room for creative thought or movement. I suspect that is, in part, because of the huge contingent of crazies waiting to react to anything you do or say.
Very little of what candidates promise comes to pass. So little, in fact, as to make the abject terror struck into the hearts of everyone who opposed the election of that person as laughable as the unrealized dreams of their supporters.
Just a couple quick examples, closing Guantanamo Prison was a huge plank in Obama's platform, never happened. Keystone pipeline was every republican's willow switch with which they beat control of the house and senate away from the democrats … still hasn't happened. Were these things worth all that teeth gnashing?
When you see (insert campaign) signs in your neighbor's yard and assume they must be holding black mass in their basement, conducting human sacrifices and laughing at the misery of orphaned kittens... you're an idiot. When that guy with the (whatever) bumper sticker cuts you off and you think, "that's just like one of those (ideologue I disagree with)... right!?!"… you're the rube.
There is nothing wrong with holding fast and deeply to beliefs and values and expressing them, nor is there any harm in disagreeing strongly with the beliefs expressed by other people. Harm comes by defining yourself and other people by their position on your most precious argument. If you allow yourself to think that you're somehow more evolved, educated or enlightened than the person who disagrees with you, you're not just an idiot, you're an ass. And you're probably wrong.
That extremely clever meme you posted that makes the other side out to be murderers, nazi's, Marxists, fascists...etc., actually make you look like an intolerant jackass incapable of seeing nuance. What's worse, you're contributing to the problem of polarization. When you see this stuff, the response you need to have is to just STOP - don't "like" it, comment on it or share it! If your friend is true, they'll get over the snub. If they're a lunatic, you're better off dealing with their cold shoulder than more of their polarizing nonsense. You can agree with them, just try not to be an enabler.
Refusing to see the limitations and nuance in your own arguments is like wearing those paper goggles, with red and blue lenses. When you refuse to see the merit and virtue in other people's arguments, you're failing both yourself and your neighbor. Stop dreaming of a blue or red world where everyone sees things your way - it's never going to happen, and it would be a horrible place if it did!
Finally, if this rant has gone on so far that I lost you, maybe the last point is just for me: there is nothing here about agreeing with everyone or absolute tolerance. This is only about respect and freedom. We must bear the responsibility of respectful disagreement, to exercise our freedom to hold our own beliefs. Each of us has a duty to rise above political rhetoric. It may not make America great, but it will improve your life and the lives of folks around you.
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