About graciousness, compassion, and getting back our political identity.

[Lyric]

I've lived through a few campaigns, and I have never seen people become as emotionally wrapped-up with their chosen primary candidate as I've seen this time around. Many people on both sides truly and sincerely believe that only *their* candidate is capable of winning against McCain. Both sides believe that the Other candidate has played dirty/been false/lied. Both sides are incredibly proud of the fact that their candidate has a chance of being the first woman/first black President. Both sides are extraordinarily angry at some of the desperate, juvenile, and divisive accusations and slanders that have come from the Other side's supporters/campaign workers/surrogates--and even from the candidates themselves. That anger has become extremely personal and is difficult (if not flat-out impossible) to simply "get over".

We're all angry about mean-spirited attacks, lies, distortions of positions, and the irritating refusal of the folks who support the Other candidate to see the Truth that we personally see so Clearly. We readily believe whatever negative information is produced about the Other candidate, and tend to brush aside, rationalize, spin, or simply ignore the negative information about Our Candidate.

The saddest part is that we, as vocal and active supporters, have been acting more as Negatives to the Opposition than Positives to our Own side. Mostly we have not functioned as "supporters", but rather as dedicated oppositionists. That's not to say that there have been *no* positive posts about candidates--far from it. Just that most of us have funneled more of our energy into verbally tearing down the Other Candidate's sandcastle than into building up our own. And we never miss a chance to denounce the Other Candidate and his/her supporters for doing exactly the same thing, as if we've never done so ourselves. Maybe we even think that the Other candidate and his/her supporters do so more often, but the truth is that there's no such thing as an unbiased, objective "scorecard" for such things. It's all about personal perception, and since we all (yes, all--even me, even you) tend to remember the negative actions of our Own Side less than we do the actions of the Other side, none of us are even close to being objective enough to judge something like that.

But I don't blame us. Oh no. I blame eight years of pent-up frustration and rage. I blame ten years of listening to negative Republican conniving, spin, and distortions--from the latter Clinton years until now. If we have become more negative than positive, more focused on destroying the "enemy" than building up "our own", it's mostly not our fault. This is what we've become accustomed to as "normal"--and the conservative political tidal wave that has wreaked havoc on our nation for so long is squarely to blame.

We often hear complaints that some of the campaign rhetoric from both candidates and their supporters alike sounds "right-wing" and "Freeperish"--mostly tuning out or rationalizing such things from Our side, but brimming with outrage with the Other side does it. The truth is that we DO sound like Freepers--all of us. We have become conditioned (consciously or not) to believe that this is the way politics is supposed to work. People claim to be tired of this kind of politics, and yet, we all embrace it every single day right here on DU--while simultaneously preaching to the Other side that it's "stupid" to judge a candidate by the words and actions of his or her supporters.

Whether or not it's stupid is up for debate in some other thread, but the point is that stupid or not, rational or not, it is simple human nature to associate a person with his/her loudest and most passionate supporters. The Rev. Wright and Richard Mellon Scaife controversies are evidence of this; if not for the tendency to closely associate the quality of a candidate with the actions and words of his/her supporters and associates, these would not BE controversies. We can argue all day that it's not right and it's not rational, and we can argue about which association is more damaging/more serious/whatever, but we aren't going to change human nature and the minds of average Americans before November, so our arguments aren't going to make a difference in this particular election.

However, our words to each other right here, and in the way that we all affect real-life (by talking to other people, commenting on radio shows and blogs, writing to CNN and MSNBC, etc.)--those things very well MIGHT affect the election. The big one--not just the primary. If we are cruel and insensitive and insulting, if we continue to destroy our own party from within (and make no mistake--the candidates are not the ones destroying the party. WE are by the severity of our respective negative reactions to them and to each other), if we continue this reckless, selfish negativity...then we risk losing the election in November. We will lose because we have alienated a large chunk of the party, a large group of people who have become SO emotionally invested with defending their candidate from unjust attacks and distortions, people who now HATE the other candidate SO much that they'd rather eat a fistful of nails than vote for That Other Candidate.

We have watched the conservatives selfishly declare that THEIR "morals and principles" are SO important that they'd never even CONSIDER voting for someone who didn't cater to them, and marveled at their selfishness and the short-sightedness of their judgmental bullshit. And yet--here we are, doing precisely the same thing. Our morals and principles are different, of course, but we are no less fanatically devoted to them, and no less self-concerned about the purity of our personal Vote. We accuse the Other of being nothing more than a political hack, a lying sack of shit in a suit (or a dress), a waste of oxygen, a traitor to the cause, a manipulative beast, a Rovian to the bone...and we make these lofty judgments while gleefully doling out Rove's WORST negative tactics in bitter mouthful after mouthful to those who we consider "the deluded enemy". We are holding our candidates to a standard of conduct that we are not willing to adhere to, even partially, ourselves--and judging them harshly and brutally when they or their supporters fall short of that standard. We justify this by claiming that our politicians should be "better" than we are, but the truth is that our politicians take their cues from US. I don't envy their position at all when they are expected to "connect with us", to show us that they're "one of us"...and yet, also they have to be BETTER. But not TOO much better--otherwise American brands them as out-of-touch elitists, and corporate hacks, and egotistical whores. No, I don't envy their positions at all.

As Democrats, our "calling card" used to be that even the wealthiest and most elite of our numbers were still "one of us". We were truly the party of the commoners, and we never expected perfection from our party leaders. We venerated JFK, even though he was suspected of being a "bad boy" at times with ladies that he wasn't married to, and was also from a wealthy and elite family. We were more than willing to elect his younger brother (if only we could have), with no negative shouts of "Dynasty! Eww!". We listened to hard truths about poverty and despair in rural America from Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Carter, and Clinton--and we didn't brand them as elitists for saying so. We forgave Bill Clinton for his human flaws, and defended him, and kept his spirits alive with our support when the Gingrich nightmare Congress was out for some Nixon revenge.

We appear to have lost that compassion and graciousness, that willingness to understand and forgive. We have become bitter, and we are thirsty for some revenge ourselves, and there are a lot of us who are SO ANGRY that they are quite literally willing to destroy the oldest political party in the nation if it means that the hated Other Candidate who stands in our way will lose. And that is what will happen if we can't bring ourselves to stop the negativity and constant outrage. As I mentioned before--our candidates take their cues from us. If we keep portraying every perceived political slight as something monumentally, earthshakingly outrageous, they will respond to it and the negativity will continue with increased vigor. If we continue to ignore the faults of our Own candidate, while magnifying the faults of the Other, our respective candidates will get the mistaken impression that they have a free pass to behave as atrociously as they wish, because we're not going to call them on it.

In case you were wondering where else you might direct all of this pent-up rage and frustration if you decide to take the focus off of our candidates, let me make a reasonable suggestion...



Because if we don't--those faces aren't going to go away anytime soon. Either we start working together (and this means compromise from BOTH sides, apologies, compassion, and the willingness to criticize our Own candidate just as harshly as the Other)...or we will most certainly be allowing the Presidency of the man who is such a toadie of Bush that he was willing to forgive FAR dirtier primary tricks than we've seen, and will become just another extension of Bush/Cheney.

The party of Thomas Jefferson is better than this. Truly.

[ananda]

1. Such emotionalism is baffling to me..

.. since both candidates are part of
the corporate fascist machine or
"business party" as Chomsky puts it.

[Lyric]

2. I truly believe that it's something of a trauma reaction

to the years of living under the compassionless Republican menace. It's like we've become more like them--not necessarily policy-wise, but in how we venerate our "Chosen Ones" and attack any perceived opposition without regard for the consequences.