One of the ways in which the rabid partisanship that afflicts our present political process weakens and harms and weakens, not just us as individuals but as a society, is that we become so focused on the villainy of our political opponents that we become blind to the foibles and downright mistakes of our political allies.
There are very few true villains in the world but there are equally if not fewer true heroes. What actually exist are men and women responding to the incentives they have before them, striving for their objectives, and generally failing to achieve them.
The way in which seeing the world in terms of heroes and villains harms us is that it obscures the actual requirements for achieving objectives. “Defeat that guy” or “get rid of that woman” rarely solves anything. That guy or that woman were responding to the incentives before them and trying to achieve objectives. As long as the incentives and objectives remain the same, they will merely be replaced by others doing the same things to achieve the same results.
I always found it especially awful when Plain started, and it was embraced by conservatives, the idea of “real Americans”. Politics has often been pretty rough and demeaning the intelligence, paternity, whatever of the opposition is old hat. But, to question one’s validity as an American seemed beyond the pale. We do have a long history of questioning the patriotism of people who have not supported our war decisions in the past. Those who didnt support the Iraq War got hit pretty hard. If you didnt support Vietnam at first there were negative consequences.
Anyway, I cant say that Democrats have been shining examples either and have been more than willing to extend the tribal nastiness and sometimes lead the way in finding worse ways to be tribal.
Steve
“The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either – but right through every human heart…even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained. And even in the best of all hearts, there remains…an uprooted small corner of evil.“
~Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn