All Politics is Personal

I didn’t grow up in a political home. Politics wasn’t something that was discussed much at all really. But somehow I knew that my family (or at least my mom) voted Republican. I didn’t grow up in a Christian or conservative home so it had nothing to do with religion. I actually have no idea what it had to do with. We seemed to be fans of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. I only really know this because for the 1992 presidential election we voted in school and I voted for Bush. Clinton won at our school and in real life. I don’t think I knew much of anything about politics that day when I voted for Bush (at school). Maybe my memory doesn’t serve me correctly, but I am pretty sure I voted for Bush because of my family’s influence.

A couple years later, when I registered to vote, I didn’t want to be a Republican or a Democrat. I registered as an Independent. I didn’t want to vote for someone because of their political party. I wanted to vote for whom I thought would do the best job and/or who was best for our county. I didn’t feel that either side was exclusively right or exclusively wrong. I couldn’t tell you which side I would have lined up with more at that time, but I knew I wasn’t going to vote for someone based on the letter by their name and I wasn’t going to vote for someone based on one issue.

I don’t remember the 1996 election other than I am certain I didn’t vote for Clinton. I voted for George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004. I voted for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012.

As the 2012 election was approaching, I didn’t talk about it much at all. It had been 3 years since I returned to church. I was heavily involved and growing in my faith. I was learning more about what it meant to live like Jesus. What seemed strange to me was that it seemed like everywhere I turned, I heard that Christians were Republicans. Christian culture seemed to be saying that Jesus would have been a Republican. I saw and heard this message both implicitly and explicitly.

This didn’t make sense to me for a few reasons. For one, from where I was sitting, the Democrats had several policies that seemed to be rooted in helping and supporting others. These were policies that I felt that Jesus would be in favor of. Secondly, both sides had policies that did support my Christian values and both sides had ones that did not. I just could not understand how people could look at both political parties and determine that Christians HAD to fall in line with Republicans. Plus, I have similarities and differences with other Christians. If I don’t see everything else the same, so why would my political affiliation have to be the same? I don’t even 100% agree with my best friends, my family or my husband. How in the world would I expect that political strangers were going to come up with policies that I would totally be in favor of? I realized that it could not be an all or nothing type of thing for me.

It wasn’t just on a large scale I heard this. When people I knew were in conversation, it led me believe that I would not belong if I spoke of my support of a democratic candidate. To me that subject was off limits, so I just remained silent.

It was very shaming. Even though I was with people that I was close to and called my friends, I said nothing of my political opinions or beliefs because it wasn’t safe. I am not even sure I considered myself a Democrat as my preference was still to be an Independent. What I did know was that I was voting for and supporting Obama. What I also knew was that it was very lonely and felt very judgmental. I was following a Jesus that was about love and acceptance of all. Yet, I didn’t see Christians accepting those that would call themselves Democrats. Nowhere do I see anything that says that I need to be of a certain political party to be a follower of Jesus. I don’t know why modern American Christianity has decided that you have to fall under this political platform to love Jesus. I didn’t have the courage to speak up. I didn’t think that I would be accepted if my true feelings were known. I was the same person whether they knew or if I spoke of my support of Obama, but I didn’t feel that I would be looked at the same. I didn’t want to be talked about behind my back. So I was silent.

Although I didn’t have the courage to speak up, I did have enough strength in my beliefs that I didn’t allow this flawed thought process to determine my convictions. Although not the subject of this post, I thought it important to point out that one of the things that I know that helped me to get to the place I am today is that I did have a Christian friend that allowed me to be me. This was politically and in other areas. Although I felt a lot of shame (but didn’t know it at the time), my friendship with her gave me strength and allowed me to feel accepted in a world that was making me feel that I didn’t belong. I am not sure who I would be today if she didn’t show me that I could be real with her, even when we didn’t see things the same way.

Thankfully, I am stronger now. It is still hard to speak up. I don’t hold any ill will for anyone that contributed to the feeling that I needed to be silent because I know that being silent was my choice. It wasn’t intentional towards me. They didn’t know that I didn’t agree with their blanket statements or see things they way that they did. They didn’t know the words they were saying were hurting me or causing me shame. It goes to show that words matter. Getting to know people matter. You never know what you might say that is hurtful or shame inducing to those around you. I wasn’t strong enough to be vulnerable and share my views so they didn’t have a chance to consider something different. I don’t know what would have happen if I did. I am more secure in who I am now. I hope that people like me for who I am, and not who I vote for or what policy I agree with. I need to be true to myself. If being true to myself drives people away or creates judgment about the type of person I am, than they haven’t earned the right to truly know me anyway.

I tell you this, because I want Christians to know that Jesus doesn’t care about your political affiliation. He cares about your heart. You don’t have to be on a certain side of the aisle to follow Jesus. He loves and accepts you either way. If people or culture are telling you that you can’t support a democratic candidate or party and follow Jesus, they are wrong.

If this surprises you or you are appalled that I would think this way or support Democrats, I just want you to remember, I am the same person I was before you read this. If you know me and you are reading this, I am guessing that you like me, think I am a good person or at least have some qualities that you like. That is all still true.

I am not now nor have I ever been very political. I know how I feel about certain issues. There are some issues that I don’t have a strong feeling about either way. There are probably even some issues, that I can’t say that what I think or believe is necessarily the best political policy, but it makes sense to me as a human. I don’t always speak up or talk politics because I don’t know the ins and outs and I don’t feel competent enough to have a discussion outside of what I think or feel. I don’t have the information to back it up.

What I do care about is the fair treatment and care of all people. Fair treatment and care for all humans encapsulate some of the reasons that Donald Trump will not get my vote. From the beginning, I believe Donald Trump has operated from a hateful and divisive place. Although, not needing to be perfect, our leaders need to be role models. There has been far too much dehumanization, corruption and deceit in the Trump campaign and not nearly enough unity and compassion. I will use my vote to speak out against it. I think lack of humanity may be the greatest threat to our nation. By no means do I think the dehumanization started with Donald Trump nor do I think it will stop once he is out of office. But I need better from our leaders. If we continue to allow that kind of behavior it will continue to spread throughout all of humanity. This is something that I cannot accept.

Originally, I planned to continue this post and talk about polarization and dehumanization. However, I didn’t want to make this post too long. I hope you will continue by reading my next post We Agree About Nothing.

We Agree About Nothing.

There are a lot of political issues that I am not passionate about. I am not passionate about politics in general. What I am passionate about is the fair treatment of all humans. I believe we have some cultural and systemic issues regarding race, poverty and education that are the root of so many of our issues. I believe that we should all be working together to take care of each other and try to create an equitable chance for all humans.

To me this comes down to two main things: Polarization and Dehumanization.

Polarization

We have politicized EVERYTHING. It seems like these days you can tell what side of the aisle someone is on just based on how they feel about something. I am sure that was always true about some issues, but lately it feels true about everything. I am waiting to hear that I can’t shop at Kohls unless I want to be part of a certain political affiliation. There are always things you expect to be this way but not seemingly everything.

There used to be certain key issues that would be party related. That makes sense to me. Some issues are clearly a Republican or Democratic issue. But everything, or even most things, should not be this way. There are many issues that should not be political, but for some reason they are now. It feels like we are all trying to join a fraternity or sorority or something else exclusive that requires a lot of sacrifice. We are just waiting for the leaders to determine our every move. It feels as though when we hear about Covid, masks, protests, Black Lives Matter, systemic racism, climate change, equality, tax cuts, etc., we have to decide to support or oppose these concepts based on our political affiliation. This should not be the case. I remember a time when I barely thought about politics, and now I can’t avoid it.

It seems as though people are afraid to have an opinion or believe in something that is contradictory to their political party. Which political party I support does not dictate how I feel on every issue. We all have family, friends and other people we are connected to that we do not see eye to eye with. We continue to have relationships with these people. As we should. So if I can have relationships with people that differ from me, why would I feel that everything I believe has to fall in line with my political party.

It is almost though people are afraid to have their own thoughts so they just adopt the thoughts of a politician or someone else they know that supports that political party. As a culture, we have lost the ability to think for ourselves. We each must do our own critical thinking. We should be using this critical thinking to determine what is true, rather than basing it off of what someone else says. We should also be using it determine how we feel and what we think.

I don’t know why every issue cannot have credibility unless it is brought up by the candidate or party that we support. We should be taking each issue, learning about it and putting it up against our own intelligence, thought process, beliefs, morals and values to determine how we feel about it. Maybe if we each did this we would not be so divided.

God created us to have free will. He chose not to make all of our decisions for us. I can’t imagine, He would give that up so that politicians could do it for us instead.

I mentioned in my last post that I wanted to remain an Independent and this is why. I want to use critical thinking and my own values to determine how I feel and what I think about something. I don’t want to feel the need to feel a certain way because my political party believes something. I don’t know why we have given them so much power.

We each have our own moral compass and values. For some of us that is rooted in faith and for some of us it is not. We should be looking to these morals and values to determine how we feel about something. However, we tend to look toward our political affiliation instead. We aren’t measuring how we feel about something against our beliefs and values but we allow our political party to dictate how we feel about something. Why are we giving them so much power? Why are allowing politicians, which are known to not be a group that is known for their integrity to determine how we feel about something. Why is a political party our new moral compass?

Dehumanization

Not only have we seemed to make everything political and stop thinking for ourselves, but we have stopped treating people with kindness and respect. We have forgotten what we have in common and only concentrate on our differences. We have removed humanity from how we operate. People don’t think twice about shaming people based on their political party (among other things). They speak of “Democrats” or “Republicans” in such harsh terms that they seem to forget that these people are humans. They have souls. They have minds. They have hearts. I think one of the reasons it is so easy to be cruel to others in this way is because we have dehumanized them. You probably wouldn’t go up to your friend of a different political affiliation and name call. But you might make a blanket statement about Democrats or Republicans.

I recently learned about this while reading “Braving the Wilderness” by Brene Brown (which I highly recommend reading). In her book she quotes Michelle Maiese who defines dehumanization as “the psychological process of demonizing the enemy, making them seem less than human and hence not worthy of humane treatment.” Brene goes on to say, “Dehumanizing often starts with creating an enemy image. As we take sides, lose trust, and get angrier and angrier, we not only solidify an idea of our enemy, but also start to lose our ability to listen, communicate, and practice even a modicum of empathy. Once we see people on “the other side” of a conflict as morally inferior and even dangerous, the conflict starts being framed as good versus evil. She again quotes Maiese who writes: “Once the parties have framed the conflict in this way, their positions become more rigid. In some cases, zero-sum thinking develops as parties come to believe that they must either secure their own victory or face defeat. New goals to punish or destroy the opponent arise, and in some cases more militant leadership comes into power.”

Brene (by way of Maiese) explains that dehumanization is a process in which we become accepting of violations against human nature and the human spirit. We typically believe that people’s human rights should not be violated however once we have dehumanized we create moral exclusion. People that are targeted by their gender, skin color, ethnicity, age (and so on) are depicted as “less than,” criminal or evil. Eventually these people fall out of who is protected by our moral code.

Brene goes on to say , “I know it’s hard to believe that we ourselves could ever get to a place where we would exclude people from equal moral treatment, from our basic moral values, but we’re fighting biology here. We’re hardwired to believe what we see and to attach meaning to the words we hear. We can’t pretend that every citizen who participated in or was a bystander to human atrocities was a violent psychopath. That’s not possible, it’s not true, and it misses the point. The point is that we are all vulnerable to the slow and insidious practice of dehumanizing, therefore we are all responsible for recognizing it and stopping it.

…When we engage in dehumanizing rhetoric or promote dehumanizing
images, we diminish our own humanity in the process. When we reduce Muslim
people to terrorists or Mexicans to “illegals” or police officers to pigs, it says
nothing at all about the people we’re attacking. It does, however, say volumes
about who we are and the degree to which we’re operating in our integrity.
Dehumanizing and holding people accountable are mutually exclusive.
Humiliation and dehumanizing are not accountability or social justice tools,
they’re emotional off-loading at best, emotional self-indulgence at worst. And if our faith asks us to find the face of God in everyone we meet, that should
include the politicians, media, and strangers on Twitter with whom we most
violently disagree. When we desecrate their divinity, we desecrate our own, and
we betray our faith.

Challenging ourselves to live by higher standards requires constant
diligence and awareness. We’re so saturated by these words and images, we’re
close to normalizing moral exceptions. In addition to diligence and awareness,
we need courage. Dehumanizing works because people who speak out against
what are often sophisticated enemy image campaigns—or people who fight to
make sure that all of us are morally included and extended basic human rights
often face harsh consequences.“

There are plenty of examples of both sides of the aisle using name calling and hateful or insulting speech. We should be offended by memes and offensive comments from either side. If we aren’t, then we are dehumanizing people. We should never tolerate this. We may not agree with someone’s politics or policies but that does not mean we need to be reduced to dehumanizing people. In fact we should be speaking out against it.

I was listening to a webinar from Brene Brown last week and she addressed dehumanization, specifically in politics. She made three points.

*It is hard to hate people close up. See people and respect their humanity.

*Silence about hatefulness makes us complicit. We need to speak up about dehumanization.

*Listen with an unarmed ego. We aren’t here to be right, we are here to get it right. Be willing to listen and learn.

Neither of these concepts are new, but they are getting worse, not better. I believe humanity is in danger. We need unity. We need big changes to systemic problems that aren’t going away and will take a lot of work and courage to change. We need to stop making enemies out of each other. We need to join forces to combat these problems together. We need to stand up and fight against the continued (and worsening) polarization and dehumanization.