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This is a challenging subject for me, personally. How do we as individuals and as a society respond to egregiously bad behavior by politicians of poor character and their most rabid supporters acting in bad faith? (thread)
Much of the challenge stems from the fact that Trump has injected deliberately and systematically cruel, immoral, unethical, unlawful, and unconstitutional behavior into public discourse and demanded that we treat this depravity as a matter worthy of civility and public debate.
These are issues of politics only in the extremely narrow sense that they are inflicted upon us by morally bankrupt politicians and their supporters on a political stage.
However, these are fundamental issues of ethics at their core, not politics, undeserving of even acknowledgement in political debate in any normal time.
How do we, as individuals and as a society, respond in a way that makes clear that cruelty, ethnonationalism, corruption, authoritarianism, and the like are entirely unacceptable?
On the other hand, how to we treat the adherents of these morally bankrupt philosophies with love and compassion, both because those traits best represent who *we* are, and also because it may be more practical?
I've seen many advocates for "punching nazis", and perhaps there are good historical arguments for nipping violent extremism in the bud earlier, albeit through hopefully non-violent means of confrontation.
And perhaps many of the ringleaders of the worst and most cruel actions, such as deliberate cruelty inflicted upon many thousands of refugee children, deserve to be hounded in public for the remainder of their days.
However, while meeting violence with ostracization, ridicule, or even violence might be cathartic, practically speaking it allows them the ability to rationalize their victimhood, reinforces their beliefs, and closes the door to deradicalization best achieved with empathy.
So, why and how do we love individuals that are openly cruel and arguably undeserving of that love? For some of us, the answer might be our religious beliefs. For others, civic duty or humanist ideals.
Beyond our ideals, there are the practical concerns. The people most successful at deradicalization all seem to agree that it is only achieved through approaches like radical empathy.
Antifa aren't going to solve this national crisis for us. We need better tools than violent confrontation. It's going to require all of us to respond with love, no matter how hard it may be.
Love doesn't mean we accept excuses, or withhold true justice or accountability. Those that love us best and most unconditionally are usually those that demand the most from us.
I don't know that I can honestly say that I love Donald Trump or his most rabid and violent supporters. Again, this is a huge struggle for me and perhaps always will be. But I'll keep trying.
In the meantime, I'm very thankful for @thejimbaker, both for his public service as well as this strongly principled contribution to the public discourse.
