(2 minute, 30 second read)
Way back in 2012 I wrote a letter to the editor dealing with the extremes being presented at that time. What difference a decade makes! I’ve left the letter intact but have added additional comments in italics.
The words “moderate” and “compromise” have become pejoratives along with “liberal” and “conservative”. It’s become easy to categorize people into neat little niches with simple words and one-size-fits-all catch phrases, but it serves no purpose.
I think that this still hold true for the most part. We have added new words of insult like “woke” and “snowflake” to the lexicon. The Memes of social media platforms have served as force multipliers in causing targeted division of populations.
We’ve become a culture of extreme branding. Those that aren’t like-minded are demonized in terms that demean the accused’s humanity and the accuser’s as well. Our opposition can’t simply be guilty of having a different approach. They have to be evil incarnate. A change in law or policy that we disagree with must be portrayed as something that tears at the fundamental fabric of our society.
The problem that we have now is that the issues our society is facing have become more intense. The fundamental fabric of society is indeed being torn apart. The insurrection that took place at our nation’s Capitol on 1/6 provides a blinding example of that with tens of millions of citizens continuing to support the very seditionists that tried to overthrow our government. A few hundred thousand people died needlessly during the most intense part of the Covid pandemic because of liberal versus conservative beliefs. Decades of established laws are being eliminated. People are openly threatening civil war.
In the political arena, the polarized extremists are intolerant of their moderate colleagues even as they seek the votes of moderate in-betweens in order to get elected. When debating policy, they do not look for an acceptable middle ground through compromise. It’s all or nothing. A government of domination by the extremes can easily lead to a “tyranny of the minority” and the extremists don’t consider the alternatives to this uncompromising strategy if it fails. They ignore the wishes of the majority of the population which does not actually favor the extreme positions held by those on either the far right or the far left.
We’re seeing this now. What I’m not seeing these days is the same kinds of extreme behavior coming from the left even though the Trump Republican Party (TRP) is blaming them for everything bad in society with the tag of socialism. In the TRP’s eyes the United States is a nation under siege with cities on fire because of the left. The right wing openly courts Christian Nationalism and those with racist agendas.
Extreme authoritarian power often ends with an extreme backlash in response where more is lost than was gained. We need to seek out and elect those who are willing to pick up the mantle of “moderate” and the practice of “compromise” before we have irreparably damaged our country.
At this point we are a seriously damaged country and the TRP isn’t even close to being done. Compromise becomes less possible when the compromise is to subvert democracy and basic humanity.
