Morality, Politics and Retribution
Terry H. Schwadron
March 10, 2023
On so many counts, our political and cultural divides depend on the notion that I am right — and so, you must be wrong.
Some of us are so wrong that Donald Trump now puts himself forward as an avenger. “For those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution,” Trump told a conservative political audience last week, branding his campaign for president a dark knight ready to wipe out the enemy by finding them treasonous and threatening figurative or literal death.
What happened to I’m right for me, and it’s too bad you don’t agree with me?
We’ve moved way beyond the enemy being wrong about health care or immigration or tax cuts, and instead, now sloppily and brutally have advanced to declaring whole populations wrong just for being holding a different point of view or for looking or acting “different” by race, culture, education, taste, or identity by whatever yardstick seems nearby.
It feels that we are in a definite and measurable new slide down the muddy hillside of incivility. If you think that book isn’t right for your kid, well, fine, but why must you impose your sense of morality on me and my kid? Instead, we’re seeing a further unraveling in our cultural wars to general detest and outward hatred to those whose morality does not exactly mimic our own.
This entire politics-as-victim development should be forcing us to rethink the state of our struggle with Difference, as we watch an acceleration in how The Divides have slid beyond persuasion, past attempts at proselytizing, and on to brutal force and exclusion.
If you don’t agree with me, you don’t deserve to exist in my world. It’s the essence of what we’re hearing from the “Dilbert” cartoonist and from MAGA leadership alike. Why is it better, to say nothing ab out acceptable, for a state like Tennessee to ban drag shows than simply not to attend?
The exclusionary cries of “go back where you came,” that we hear more often again, or the calls to get your own state so you don’t sully mine, or don’t have anything to Blacks (or Whites or dog- or cat-people) are discordant in a society that is as clearly pluralistic as ours. And yet . . . these public exclusions are more barbed and, unfortunately, often literally are growing in physical danger by the day.
The Sarcasm Drips
Spend just a few minutes on most of these constant political cable talk shows on channels that gladly say they generally affiliate with Left- or Right-leaning ideas.
Apart from the overgeneralizations, the distancing from Truth or the lack of rigor at examining the issue of the moment, listen for the distinct and constant sarcasm with which the Other Side is dismissed.
Apparently, it has become impossible for a Fox host to dismiss an unsuccessful Joe Biden policy with fact or even persuasive argument, and instead to insist on a dripping tone of debasement to dismiss the entire “woke” universe. On MSNBC, the legally dismissed attitudes of Republican officials who still insist on arguing for fabulist election denial theories must be dismissed for living on a separate version of Earth.
Civility is for chumps, and so we get Donald Trump promising to be the personification of Retribution in his reelection bid as if that constitutes an understandable set of how-to-govern policies rather than a maniacally driven ego equally dismissing rivals from his own party along with Biden’s.
Over centuries, it’s been a hallmark of Christianity to insist on saving not only its own souls, but those of all whom Christians encounter in the world. The traditions of proselytizing were seen as an expression to reach out to save non-believers; missionaries were sent out globally in hopes of saving souls. Then things changed for the worse, and Jews, Muslims, heretics were expelled or killed instead.
Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, atheists, agnostics, and lots of others don’t proselytize, and, in fact, put up obstacles to winning “converts.”
We might remind Trump that one thing Christianity preaches, however, is to avoid retribution and revenge. Christian tradition holds that retribution is from God not man, that individuals should be helped in order that they do not offend again, that we may hate the crime but not the person who committed it.
Trump and the Trump following seems to believe in crushing opponents as individuals.
Proselytizing a Singular View of America
As Americans, we still see proselytizing efforts over abortion and gender identity issues as if it is only a matter of seeing the light to find total acceptance and agreement over central issues about someone’s moral code over an individual’s right to choose how to live.
Behaviors arising from moral disputes, including those raised about abortion or gender identity, should be talked about by families, churches, and other settings, but not settled by laws insisting on mandatory behaviors. Lasting value changes in our society, including for health or habits, come from outside the law-making chambers. Our laws are meant to be protective of abuse by those who insist on their own way for all.
By contrast, outside of speeches by Republican leaders who see dangers of gay priming even among kindergartners I never hear of a drag queen asking anyone to “convert” to bigger ranks of gender-fluid people.
The autocrats of the word are showing us that for them to win, someone must lose — whether on the battlefield, in Congress or at the school library.
Instead of teaching people how to think, there is an increasing urgency to tell teachers to tell students what to think. If “indoctrination” is the target of parental anger about a world in which people of difference come together, the answer should not be an equal “indoctrination” about a straight, White, Christian American history of values that simply excludes non-members of the club.
Rather, the opposite of “indoctrination” is an informed, reasoned way to develop individual moral codes that can coexist with others. What happened to the traditional advice of teaching good decision-making, respecting others, and taking responsibility?
How has that come to be so at odds with an attitude of shoving one set of moral codes on everyone? Other than Donald Trump, who believes that morality means lying, cheating, and propagandizing for Donald Trump? How has that come to be the best political platform on which to run for president of the United States?
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