Toxic Political Division
Why we should focus on where we align rather than where we don't.
It turns out that when you don't write for a significant period of time and spend free time consuming political content—things can get complicated fast. I've been diving deeper into the political scene after a long hiatus (after a disillusioning experience at Standing Rock and a decision to focus on wilderness work with children for a while). I won't pretend to have a full picture of the social, cultural, and political landscape in the US and around the world, though what I have witnessed has been shocking and disturbing. Here's a hot take:
We've been had. Most of the media landscape, at least in the US, falls cleanly on either side of a particular political spectrum. There's conservative-leaning news and liberal-leaning news. Frankly, I'm very careful about the media content I consume, so I don't actually know much about the content that folks are consuming on TV. However, what I do notice among people that I know personally, folks often tend to view the primary political issue in the country to be the immoral or foolish behavior of the other side of the political spectrum.
I believe I've mentioned before the tremendous danger of this and the high likelihood of a second US civil war as a result of this. I won't get into that too much here. Though, I've been thinking a lot about this lately. It reminds me of a story I heard about the early days of this country.
In 1676, a man named Nathaniel Bacon was in conflict with the then Virginia governor, William Berkeley. I'm sure most of us would probably be appalled by Bacon's intentions for the militia—which was to have a military retaliation against indigenous raids of colonial settlements. Regardless, Bacon was a wealthy Virginian who managed to amass a militia so large that they successfully invaded the capital city of Jamestown and burned it to the ground. Bacon died shortly thereafter from an illness and the rebellion fell apart. Still, the wealthy plantation owners were rattled by the raid. Why? The militia was formed mostly of indentured servants—both black and white—as well as enslaved Africans. However, the terms “black” and “white” as references to particular kinds of human beings were not particularly common at that time. However, Bacon's insurrection changed that. [1]
It was not long after this that the idea of “race” began to be legally established, with certain rights and privileges offered to white folks and denied to black folks. In this way, the solidarity that previously existed between white and black indentured servants was artificially severed—apparently to prevent any successful insurrection like Bacon's from ever happening again. The racial conflict that followed was clearly the most devastating to those deemed “black” and denied basic human rights for the next 200+ years.
This horror, though, is obvious. More hidden and insidious, though, was the way that it harmed all poor Americans, even the “whites” who now enjoyed an unearned sense of racial superiority.
The truth is, slavery was bad for poor white folks. How could a poor white farmer hope to compete in a labor market dominated by slaves? Obviously, they couldn't. In the slave-owning South, poor whites had to compete economically with blacks who did not have to be paid at all. Thus, poor whites had to do “the South’s dirtiest, most dangerous jobs, like ditching and mining.” [2]
As the interests that united poor black and white folks were dissolved (or, more accurately, their awareness of them), they resented each other which weakened them both. The artificially constructed wedge of “race” drove a wedge between working-class people—benefitting, primarily, the ruling class.
Why do I bring this up now?
Again, we've been played. Or, perhaps, we've played ourselves. Regardless, it's hard not to see the countless forms of political tribalism that divide our country into two rival political camps that war with each other over ideologies while nothing significant gets done. These political differences are highlighted tremendously on television and across social media—reinforcing the idea that we must defeat one another in order to survive.
Who benefits from this collusion? Certainly not us. Income and wealth inequality continues to rise, private interests continue to hijack democratic processes, and the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists says we're closer to nuclear armageddon than we've ever been in history.
These are absolutely bipartisan issues. Whether you're a left-wing anarchist in San Francisco or a passionate Trump supporter from rural Alabama; you should care about these issues. These are issues that cause significant detriment to the American people—and the whole world.
Yet, I rarely see liberals and conservatives putting aside their differences to focus on their common interests in these things. Rather, our political attention is being led almost exclusively to issues that divide us. Meanwhile, the issues in which there ought to be broad agreement don't get the attention that they merit. Meanwhile, the world burns and the rich get richer.
Recently I, like perhaps many of you, have begun to see our political landscape quite a bit differently. Obviously, I still note the difference between conservative and liberal worldviews. I still consider myself a liberal-leaning person. However, that feels increasingly irrelevant.
Our media landscape is populated by lies, ideologies, moralizing arguments, and divisive political content. I think we would all be much better served if we would simply ignore this.
I, too, have a strong opinion about abortion. I, too, have a strong opinion about American gun ownership laws. I, too, have a strong opinion about transgender issues.
Yet, these are precisely the issues that divide us—and they are not the most important issues of our time. The most important issues are the ones that we should all be able to get behind—beneath the political divisiveness that prohibits any possible dialog that could carry us to a world we can enjoy together.
I don't care if you're liberal or conservative, but I bet we can almost all agree on a few basic things:
Planting trees is good. Our children are worth protecting. A government that is paid by corporate lobbyists is not a true democracy. The media should tell the truth. We should avoid a widespread nuclear war.
It is high time we recognize our united destiny in all of this. We cannot address any of these pressingly important political issues if we don't come together.
If we do come together, there is nothing we can't do.
Yet if we don’t come together, there is nothing we can.
Thank you all for your patience with my writing as it comes out in sporadic spurts. There is much more to come. Much of it will contain relevant information of the kind that I hope can transcend the political divides mentioned above. Stay tuned.