There is a strong impulse on the Left now, which I certainly feel myself, to fight back against Trump with all we have. We hate what he’s doing. We feel that our most basic moral beliefs are being violated, the things we care about being destroyed; so we want to join together in battle to stop it. It’s a natural reaction, a human reaction, one that has been nearly universal throughout history.
There’s also an opposing impulse exemplified by many people we admire: an impulse towards inclusion and openness and humility – towards love over hate, peace over war. We believe deeply in those virtues. But in order to fight effectively, we feel we have to deny them. We have to define some people as outside the boundaries, as evil. We have to close ourselves to the possibility that they could have some good in them. We have to stereotype them, see them as a faceless and unified enemy. Our assumption is: first we have to win, then we can love.
The problem that we too often forget is that the other side feels the same way. Partisans on the right now believe that we are evil. If you read both sides, you see identical language: If they can get away with lying and and cheating and manipulating, then we have to start doing it too.
This tit-for-tat spiral of mistrust and hatred can lead to no good end. No matter what our politics, it is vital that we end it. All will lose while it continues.
Is there an alternative to fighting? Can love win?
I was much moved some years ago by Bishop Tutu’s sermon in Trenton, New Jersey, on the theme: Everyone stands in God’s light. “Everyone,” he insisted: “Idi Amin – he stands in God’s light! Adolph Hitler! And …” (with a little smile - this was in 2006): “George Bush!” (There was nervous laughter in the largely African-American congregation.) “Everyone!”
Today he would surely continue: “Donald Trump - he stands in God’s light!” And for committed partisans on the right, he would add: “Hillary Clinton, too! And Elizabeth Warren!”
This is strong medicine: it attacks our self-righteousness at the core, it undercuts our certainties. How can I choose, how can I act, how can I stand up for my beliefs, if I believe that God equally embraces Trump and Hillary, me and my most detested opponents?
Of course, paradoxically, Tutu is also a fighter. He has fought a long battle against apartheid and racial oppression; he has also fought for homosexuals and for other excluded groups. He is one of those rare souls who has sacrificed his own comfort and safety for a lifetime to battle oppression. And yet at the same time he is something far rarer: someone who insists on the essential dignity and worth of the oppressors. That is an extraordinary triumph of the spirit.
Extra-ordinary as this is, he shows us the way to salvation - secular as well as spiritual. As walking requires two legs, so human progress requires two impulses: including and excluding, fighting and reconciling. Neither alone can work.
If you merely fight for what you believe, you may lose. And what if you win? You will have made deeper enemies of your enemies. They may never forgive you. They will continue to fight you by whatever means they have – open or hidden. They will resist every move you make. If you suppress them sufficiently they may go underground for generations, centuries, millennia. The fire will continue to smoulder, like Serbs and Croats since the 10th century, Muslims and Christians from the time of the Crusades – until a little stirring leads to an explosion of hate. Fighting strengthens its own antithesis and undermines its own intentions.
But not fighting is not an alternative. If you merely love, then not only will you lose, giving oppressors a clear field to exert their will; you will also sacrifice your own dignity, which depends centrally on the willingness to to take a stand for what you believe in.
So now what?
There’s a tactical argument for love. Democrats are torn now (February 2019) between candidates who would fire up the base for a fight – Warren and Sanders – and ones who would reach out more to undecided voters – Biden, Buttigieg. The first pair might add votes from some passionate Democrats who would not turn out for the latter, while the second pair might add votes from the 15% or so who say that they have not yet made up their minds. Which is more likely to win? Highly seasoned political professionals differ, but odds are that reaching out does better than consolidating the base. The Democratic campaign of 2018, following a reaching-out strategy, was highly successful; Jeremy Corbyn’s narrowly ideological 2019 campaign in England was catastrophic. So hardheaded realism suggests that simple fighting is not the best approach.
There’s also a longer-term strategic argument. If the Democrats win the election, Left partisans will feel energized and inspired, will feel good about themselves, and will push strongly for expansion of liberal policies. But there will be a strong impulse on the right to fight back. They will feel that their most basic moral beliefs are being violated, the things they cared about being destroyed. They will fight with whatever means they have – open or hidden – and resist every move we make. We will be further infuriated by the conservative resistance. There will be a continuation of the polarization and paralysis that have marked the last few decades. The vicious circle will deepen.
The hope now lies in this: that there is actually much that the American citizenry can agree on. There are many policies with support from large percentages of the population, but that can’t get done because of the current spiral of mistrust. Polls indicate that 83% of the public - including 70% of conservatives - agree that “We need to invest more in the development of renewable energy sources like solar and wind.“(2) 75% favor higher taxes for the ultrawealthy.(3) Over 70% support a voluntary Medicare buy-in for all.(4) Similar majorities say the government should be involved in ensuring a basic income for those 65 and older (71 percent), and helping people get out of poverty (67 percent).(5) On guns, immigration, even abortion there is similar near-consensual support for significant policy advances.
Yet these consensual policies that are languishing because neither side wants to give the other a victory. Because both sides are intent on winning, neither can actually make progress. Every move spurs a counter-move; every change in administration strives to undo what the previous one did.
That’s where love comes in. If we turn up the volume of our impulse to generosity and inclusion – if we see Republicans as standing with us in God’s light – we can find vital areas of progress that all of us believe are right and good. We can start to move. And it becomes far more likely that having started we will find more directions for walking together.
Concretely, I’m talking about developing citizen conversations in which Republicans and Democrats explore issues together and search for those areas of shared belief. This would defang the most committed partisans who now dominate the political scene because they are energized to come out in primaries and by-elections; it would give a voice to the large majorities who agree on many issues. We know this can work from many examples at local scales. Now it is urgent – very difficult, but urgent – to reinvigorate citizen politics through deep engagement at the national level.
This is not a call for moderation, or even civility; it’s not about compromising or being nice. We must always be true to who we are and what we believe. Rather, I’m proposing a search for real agreements: areas in which those whom we now see as enemies share our beliefs. There are a lot more of those than we think. But only love – openness, humility, inclusion – can find them; and thus, in the end, only love can win.
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1. In the 2016 election, the Democrats aimed their appeal at the “median voter” while the Republicans aimed to activate their base. In that case, at least, the former strategy did better. See Hemphill, Libby, and Matthew A. Shapiro. 2018. “Appealing to the Base or to the Moveable Middle? Incumbents’ Partisan Messaging Before the 2016 US Congressional Elections.”
2. State of the Center survey, 2014, Q50
3. Fox News and Politico polls are in this same range: see https://politi.co/2qhEApc
5. Pew, 2017: http://bit.ly/350rzzL
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