Is hate the new optimism in America?

I was struck by Mayor Gavin Buckley’s response to the shootings at the Capital Gazette newspaper in Annapolis, Maryland, on Thursday. The Australian immigrant to the U.S. spoke passionately about the need for us all to get along. In the wake of a terrible tragedy, this leader found the presence and strength to deliver a message of reconciliation in response to an act of hate.

He offered more than prayers. He offered more than a statement to remember the victims’ families in our hearts and minds. He offered a path forward, eloquently and clearly.

“This can’t be the new normal. We can’t just keep on accepting this. We can’t just move on to the next massacre,” said Buckley in one of several television interviews he gave in the aftermath of the shooting. He added, “We have a president who makes it ok to be angry, to be mad. We shouldn’t be mad all the time. We need to take a deep breath and realize that we’re all neighbors and we might disagree on things, but we’ve got to stop hating one another.” 

His reaction struck me as a rare response in these times. In our political environment, leaders like to take their opponents down publicly with an added dose of vindictiveness. And it’s no longer enough to battle the opposing party. Some politicians demean their opponents' supporters as well, calling the motives and intelligence of citizens into question and urging them to be disrespectful to one another. Hillary Clinton referred to Trump’s supporters as deplorables. Donald Trump routinely attacks his perceived enemies on Twitter (the list is too long to repeat here, but here’s a sampling). 

We all know the common storylines that we battle over every day. They are repeated often enough that they’ve become tropes: immigrants are criminals; the media cannot be trusted; our institutions are corrupt; the Mueller investigation is a witch hunt.

Stories about immigrants hit particularly close to home. It’s not an abstract belief to me; it’s a theme that pulses through my body and defines my life. My 25-year-old grandmother arrived from Sicily nearly a century ago with all of her personal belongings in a single wooden trunk. Considered an old maid back home, she was shipped off to live with relatives in Rochester, New York. The hope, no doubt, was that she would find a better life, maybe even a husband in a land where all dreams are possible.

She did find a mate in my grandfather who emigrated from Italy at 18 as part of an old-fashioned gap year. His father, a successful businessman, insisted that my grandfather spend one year in America as a sort of finishing school. The story goes that my grandfather’s parting words to his father were, “See you in a year, Dad!” My great-grandfather responded, “No, you won’t. Once you see America, you'll never come back.” My grandfather never returned to Italy. To this day, he remains the proudest American I’ve ever known.

I was reminded of this when listening to a recent piece on NPR’s Weekend Edition, which included interviews with new American citizens who’d come from Mexico and Venezuela. They spoke reverently of America and the life-changing ability to seek a better life and pursue opportunities not available in their former countries. They expressed such optimism about America. They didn’t talk about fighting with people who didn’t share their beliefs; they simply fought to be here. 

Even with their positive views of what America represents, immigrants have found themselves engulfed by extreme hate-based rhetoric. If we are to believe the talking points, many immigrants are criminals who must be kept out with an impenetrable wall. They are often drug dealers and sex offenders. Yet the reality is far different; most face meager existences and come to America for better economic opportunities. Others live in dangerous circumstances or are persecuted and need to flee for their own safety.

Immigrants risk everything to start over in America because of what our county represents: freedom. But what is freedom in America today? A woman's right to choose? A man's right to marry whomever he pleases? A voter's right to cast a ballot without encumbrances in a district that is not gamed for a specific result? Many Americans seem to have forgotten that freedom is an elastic concept. It must fit many needs, not just our own.

Instead, Americans are seeking freedom their way—and they want to impose it on everyone else. We jeer loudly when different viewpoints are expressed. We seem to think that if we hate hard enough, yell loud enough, and declare the other guy wrong, we can silence our opponents (our oppressors?), and the American dream will be ours.

Can we only feel optimistic about American values when our side wins and the other side loses?

We’ve entered a dangerous cycle of hate masked as righteousness. Our fondest hopes seem linked to suppressing the fondest hopes of others. We’ve abandoned the art of listening and compromise; key ingredients in the great American experiment. Instead we shame each other publicly; we even kill each other. This time five journalists were slaughtered in the Capital Gazette offices in Annapolis. A year ago, Republicans were shot on a baseball field outside Washington, D.C.

It took an Aussie immigrant, Mayor Buckley, to remind us of who we are and how to break the cycle. There must be a “live and let live” philosophy. We can’t have our own way all the time. We can’t expect others to live by our rules. The rules must be loosely framed to accommodate all Americans regardless of race, creed, or religion. We must be the lighthouse sending steady beacons of optimism, even to those who do not share our beliefs.

Pat Furgurson, a reporter at the Capital Gazette, may have summed it up best. After a police press conference in Annapolis, he was asked if he had any words to share with others. The Guardian reports that he choked up a bit then replied, “What’s so wrong about peace, love, and understanding?” Then he presumably went back to do his job, informing the public about local events in his Maryland community and, when warranted, speaking truth to power.

What we say when we don’t talk politics

I just returned from a four-day trip to Washington, D.C., to visit my daughter and help her settle into a new apartment. We bought the infrastructure of a modern life: kitchen utensils, lamps, throw pillows, and a toaster.

Without a car in the city, we gauged our shopping by what we could carry on foot. There was a retail system in place that we could negotiate easily in Columbia Heights (Target, Marshalls, and Bed, Bath, and Beyond). We knew where to look for different items at different stores. We made a plan, kept lists on the iPhone, and checked them off efficiently.

We also played hooky at night, treating ourselves to special outings. We had a nightcap at The Line, a converted church in Adams Morgan, ate dinner under the wisteria at Dupont’s Iron Gate, and shared the most delectable almond torte at Elle in Mount Pleasant.

I especially loved visiting with my daughter’s friends and neighbors on this trip. We hung out in beer gardens, played Uno at a neighborhood bar, and drank frozen margaritas on a picnic table as a spotty rain fell at the end of a humid day. It was a down-home kind of trip this time, just us girls. There were no visits to museums or to the Lincoln Memorial like usual. We just went about daily life, balancing chores with fun.

This trip was also different from others in one surprising way: no one I met in Washington talked politics. For the first time in years, I didn’t have a spontaneous conversation about the president or Congress or an upcoming election. Not with Uber drivers or cabbies, not with any of my daughter’s friends, barely even with my daughter.

The cab drive into the city from Reagan National Airport typically spawns at least one reference to the person in the Oval Office. But not this time. The absence of political talk made me wonder: are people just sick of talking about politics in this divisive environment? And if they aren’t talking, exactly what are they thinking.

This vacuum has been eerily present in my hometown as well as in my brief Washington encounter. It feels like people are just done talking about the madness. I wonder if they're hesitant to talk to one another, not knowing whether they are about to get into a verbal brawl. Or do they not care anymore about our political process, corrupt as it seems? (Insert your view of corruption here.) And what does it mean when we don’t even bother to shout our dissatisfaction from the rooftops about the surreal political and cultural moment we find ourselves in.

Maybe we’re all just too exhausted. Those of us with jobs are running more than full tilt. Technology forces us to be “on” 24/7 and our nine-to-five jobs often feel like we’re drinking from a fire hose. When we do have downtime, we’re bombarded with social media and, recently, with dozens of GDPR notices that we mostly ignore. This conspires to make us feel out of the loop, overwhelmed, discontented, or all of the above.

It’s no wonder that many of us shut down around our country’s political messiness. Who has the time to dig up indisputable facts that can overcome the prejudices of someone on the other side of the divide? So we stick to our own lanes, share our views with those who agree with us. The societal norms for negotiating a simple conversation seem to have vanished. Our cultural-political system suddenly feels ungoverned by rules. It's far easier to give up and go buy pillows at Target.

But what price are we paying for our inability to talk freely with one another? Are we complicit in the coarsening of American culture and its political dysfunction? Or is biting our tongues akin to a silent protest, a sort of necessary counterbalance to the unmitigated outrage that emanates from cable news, the White House, or our own personal social channels.

Maybe there is a new silent majority: the disgusted. It’s possible that quiet legions are just sitting back and waiting out the firestorm with an eagerness to speak only when it really counts, at the ballot box. Still, the silence makes me uneasy.

I keep hoping that we can face where we are, the times we live in, and exchange ideas. Because when we do, we turn toward, not away from, each other. And we need those connections, as testy as they may be, more than the unknowable silence.

I hope next time I’m in Washington the cabbie has the news on instead of background music. I hope we can use it as a launching point to discuss the latest political kerfuffle. I don’t care what side of the divide anyone is on. I just need to hear something. Because I feel bereft when I can’t hear what people are thinking. I imagine the worst—a disengaged American public. I'm guessing we can all agree that is an unsettling prospect. But without using our words, who is to know?

Jokes, lies, and tweets in the era of outrage

I went on a getaway this past weekend with some cherished high-school friends and, boy, did I need the mini vacation. I looked forward to this escape more than usual. My job has been especially stressful lately and my personal commitments piled high. Plus the undercurrent of the Comey-Cohen-Trump-Korea-Brokaw-Mueller news cycle during the past week seemed particularly toxic and overwhelming. I really needed a break.

The weekend provided a wonderful change of scenery and an electronic cleanse, which were the perfect ingredients for a refreshed attitude. My friends and I hung out, went to a concert, had fish-and-chips at a down-home restaurant, and gabbed into the night. I’d completely forgotten that the White House Correspondents’ Dinner was being broadcast the same night. I typically would have watched the show, but blissfully, this time, didn’t.

When my friends and I met the next morning for breakfast, a large-screen television at the hotel interrupted our news-free zone. The anchors were talking about the correspondents' dinner and the inappropriate jokes made by the host, comedian Michelle Wolf. Oh God, I thought. Really? The nasty discourse seemed inescapable. We decided to turn away and eat our omelets and sausages in peace, avoiding the partisan bickering and focusing on our respective plans for the day, which included a Red Sox game and a walk on the beach.

A little later that morning, one of my friends and I went back to the little cafeteria area for one last coffee before heading out. This time we were alone and it was hard to avoid the blaring voices of the talking heads on whatever news channel was on. The room was empty except for one hotel worker who was cleaning up the tables. This youngish man asked politely if we would mind if he continued cleaning while we talked.

As he swept the floors around us, the news anchors dissected the annual press dinner. At this point my friend and I, unable to block out the television chatter, started talking about the mean, often vulgar, rhetoric that has come to invade our days like an annoying soundtrack.

The hotel worker, hearing us talk, turned to us and said, “Isn’t it awful how they talk about the president like that?”

“Our president says terrible things about people all of the time,” I responded matter-of-factly. Because, well, it’s the truth. “The way he tweets and talks – he’s the one who has set this tone.”

Oh, man, I thought. Now I did it. Had I made a mistake? This was supposed to be a get-away-from-it-all zone, and here I was right back in it. Not only did I get caught up in politics, I just risked angering the young man, who’d been quite respectful to us.

“You’re right. You’re right!” he nodded his head. "You’re absolutely right.”

“We need to be able to respect the office of the president,” I said. “But it’s awfully hard to respect someone who acts like Trump.”

It was a forthright exchange and after a few more benign comments we left it at that. It was pretty clear that he was a Trump supporter. It was pretty clear that I was not. But this did not stop us from talking with one another. We didn’t sulk in silence or roll our eyes at each other because we sensed we were on the wrong side of the political divide.

We kept it simple, which may have been key. It doesn’t take much more than a kindergartner’s understanding of right and wrong to speak the truth about the vitriol that surrounds us.

And we avoided the outrage – either the fake or misinformed kind. We just had an honest conversation. I was glad he spoke up and broke the barrier of silence that many of us hide behind. He and I had no trouble communicating. We just talked to each other, you know, like humans. It didn’t have to be World War III.

What I didn’t say was as important. This wasn’t the moment to point out that the correspondents' dinner is a night dedicated to our first amendment rights that allow a comedian to be as raunchy and edgy as she wants. It wasn’t the right moment to point out that a 19-minute comedy act doesn’t hold a candle to more than a year’s worth of mean-spirited personal attacks from the President of the United States. It wasn’t the right moment to say that Sarah Huckabee Sanders could have handled the jokes with more grace and fewer obvious grimaces, virtually inviting people to run to her defense like a poor wounded damsel (she can dish it out but not take it, comes to mind). Even the conservative National Review found hypocrisy in the outcry over Wolf’s monologue.  

None of this needed to be said to the hotel worker. He was just trying to do his job. My friends and I were just trying to enjoy ourselves. And all of us were just trying to get along, which we did.

When I got home that night, I streamed Michelle Wolf’s act. Was it vulgar at times? Uh-huh. Was it mean-spirited? Yes, she’s a comedian; comedy is often rough-edged, especially during a roast like this one. While Wolf made the most fun of Trump (as expected for an administration in power), she also called out Hillary Clinton, CNN (for “breaking” the news) and lots of media celebrities, including Jake Tapper, Anderson Cooper, and Rachel Maddow. None of this was discussed in the news reports I heard. Instead the press was obsessed with the jokes about Sanders. It was a lopsided view of the event and laser-focused on stirring up controversy.

But the biggest, most overlooked takeaway of the night may have been this: while Trump held a campaign-style rally in Michigan as part of a boycott of the correspondents' dinner, Wolf beat the president at his own game. She made people feel uncomfortable, put them off balance, and got people talking. Wolf won the night in the reality entertainment sweepstakes. What a sad statement. And the media took the bait. Even sadder.

Days later, Wolf is the one we are still talking about in part because she spoke her truth. She was aided by Trump supporters who protested too much, forgetting first amendment rights when it was convenient for them. People may not have liked what Wolf said or how she said it, but she had the courage to deliver it and the right to say it her way, as a comedian. As of this writing, Wolf stands by every word. As she should. 

I think we all have to be courageous enough to speak our truth. But the delivery really matters and needs to be appropriate to the venue. Like the small exchange I had with the guy in the cafeteria, the truth is fairly obvious and can be shared without animus when you choose to get out behind your partisan fence. In the end, we can’t turn away from the truth. But in this toxic environment fueled by the president and some media outlets, we may have to relearn how to say it to each other.