Can you resist Trump while also working on political depolarization?
Is political activism at odds with reducing political toxicity? (Spoiler: no)
Last week I got an op-ed in The Hill titled “Can we lower toxic polarization while still opposing Trump?” This was my attempt to show how I see this moment in time, as someone who works to reduce toxic divides and who also sees Trump as a harmful, divisive leader. You can read the op-ed here: https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/5158612-can-we-lower-toxic-polarization-while-still-opposing-trump.
A few notes on this:
This is about one iteration of the most common objection to political conflict resolution work: “Our opponents are so bad and harmful; how can you expect us to want to work on lowering toxicity and contempt?” I see this work as, in large part, continually overcoming that basic objection to caring about this work or helping with it. (And my books focus directly on overcoming such objections.)
It might be obvious but just in case: being anti-Trump is not a requirement to work on depolarization. Often people on both “sides” assume that such work is a secret cover for the agenda of their opponents; conflict naturally makes many poeple distrust conflict resolution efforts. So I just want to emphasize that there are indeed Trump voting Americans who work on these depolarization endeavors.
As always with these pieces on such tough-to-talk-about topics, as soon as they are published, there are things I want to change. In this case, one thing I would have focused more on was the impulse we have to assign the worst possible motives to our opponents. One example of this I see from the anti-Trump side is to speak as if Elon Musk’s DOGE-related work is driven by a desire to help his businesses and enrich himself. Could that be possible? Sure. But personally I think Elon is a true believer; I think he’s filled with righteous rage and an accompanying contempt for his opponents. He is, as they say, affectively polarized; something I wrote about in another Hill op-ed. Could I be wrong? Sure, but the point is that it can be hard to tell what motivates people; it is often far from clear. But when we’re full of rage, we’ll often reach for the most pessimistic interpretations of our opponents, and that will amplify polarization and contempt. Assigning the worst-possible motives to his opponents is something Elon Musk does often — and if we want to reduce tensions, it is something we should avoid without very good evidence.
Here’s my op-ed again: https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/5158612-can-we-lower-toxic-polarization-while-still-opposing-trump/
Some related pieces that might be interesting:
Is political passion at odds with reducing political toxicity? (I wrote that for Builders to try to overcome those objections)
What anti-Trump Americans can learn from Andrew Jackson’s presidency
It might help Democrats to understand that Republicans are very very afraid of the national debt, and Musk is very much in that camp; however that doesn’t excuse his running around like a mad man…
If you want to approach the topic with a conservative friend, start with common ground, “I now understand why your side doesn’t like unelected bureaucrats, it concerns me that Elon cut _____ and am worried it will cause ____ what do you think?”
(As an activist on the right, I can tell you that I’m already bracing myself for the doors that will be slammed in my face during the midterms, over this)