The Real Bully Pulpit
Terry H. Schwadron
April 12, 2023
Conflicts drawing attention in the week’s news prompted thought about bullying and escalation where a bit more attentive listening might have avoided the results. The real bully pulpit is using position for betterment of power.
From the Middle East airstrikes to the Tennessee legislature, from attempts to undermine the Ukrainian resistance to unnecessary congressional threats over paying our national debts, we’ve felt helpless frustration as the bullies with power or weapons have decided to squash opponents or simply seek to eliminate them.
Each situation involves separate circumstances and layers of opposing passions that are allowed to rise in tit-for-tat tensions that beg the question: Is anyone even listening to what the problem is? Is everything about only winning totally?
In Israel, military forces felt obliged to strike back across Lebanon, Gaza and Syrian borders for attacks on Israeli citizens, and we saw suddenly spiralizing violence that too easily could spread. But behind it all, apparently, was the decision by the current Israeli right-leaning government to send forces to the Arab-centered Temple Mount in Jerusalem out of concern that stones were being stored to throw at non-Arab visitors. Out of that, the bullies on all sides suddenly fomented a hit-and-run fatality near Lebanon, missiles, and countering air strikes in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria. Indeed, it is hard to recognize a singular partisan face to this kind of constant-escalatory bullyism.
Surely, there is some talk therapy missing here. But, of course, Benjamin Netayahu’s government coalition with avowedly anti-Arab right-wingers, does not even want to recognize Palestinians or the voting rights of Israeli Arabs, never mind negotiate with them.
Beneath the military brushes have been suggestions in the Israeli press that the domestic pressure on the government’s outlandish plan to politicize the country’s judiciary have allowed for more leeway in policing internally, and that the decision to go in early into the Temple Mount had come about as a sort of political payoff to pressure for compromise on the judiciary questions.
Bullying Abounds
It seems equally insane that Tennessee Republicans in the House would so publicly expel two young, Black legislators in an issue ostensibly over “decorum” rather than hearing them out about gun-safety ideas — only to have localities return therm to office within days. It served no purpose for the issue, the victims, or the bullies.
The leak of seemingly dated, but still dangerous U.S. intelligence files about the Ukraine-Russia war served little public good and spells all kinds of trouble for who tells whom what secrets at the very time that Washington is under pressure to be candid about where this war is headed. Those stealing — and apparently doctoring — and distributing such information are needlessly escalating international dangers.
At the same time, why other than bullyism are we seeing more Chinese military threats to U.S. aircraft and ships as a substitute for diplomacy that never seems to happen? Why else is North Korea, which can’t apparently feed itself, spending its money and effort on building intercontinental missiles and unceasing shows of militarism just to get attention? It is all military bullyism. What else but bully-like behavior can explain Russia grabbing Ukrainian children and holding Western citizens like Evan Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal reporter, hostage?
In Washington, the continuing issuance of inane subpoenas to derail an ongoing criminal case against Donald Trump from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg is a bullying technique of interference of concern, leading, inevitably, to more countermoves. It is an example of power run mad, with no public good attached to the outcome other than the intended partisan protection of The Former Guy.
If Republicans on the committee are so sure that there was no crime committed or no crime at all, as they profess, they should simply let the jury see what they perceive and call off their attempts to manipulate an outcome.
For that matter, why does Trump’s campaign rely on berating everyone else in sight as a reason for voting for him?
When to Use Power
Just because you are able somehow to squash your opponent doesn’t make doing so right. And if you can’t force the outcome through power, decide whether you really want to pick a fight.
The American Psychological Assn. recognizing bullying as a form of aggressive behavior in which someone intentionally and repeatedly causes another person injury or discomfort. Bullying can take the form of physical contact, words, or more subtle actions. The bullied individual typically has trouble defending him or herself and does nothing to “cause” the bullying.
What the psychologists don’t explain is why our political institutions and our governments prefer to err on the side of wiping out the opposition to problem-solving. The same concept applies to information as well; when reports or data emerge that does not fit easily with the partisan political narrative, it is simply rejected as untrue or off-base.
The gun issue provides only the latest example, but as our news cycles show, we don’t know how to solve problems arising from immigration, health, education, climate, among others, and rather than seeking out the best data and solutions, we start with ridicule for the other side and move up quickly, but inevitably to tangible incidents of violence.
That’s the opposite of what we tell our kids? Isn’t our repeated message to them to find a way to use words, to invite, cajole, protest, demand a chance to be heard? Is getting one’s opinion out during a time in which everyone has access to social media and 24-hour cable television so difficult?
Or do we fear that even recognizing minority opinions is a concession too far? So, we want ideas eliminated through book bans and expulsions of people who don’t look like us or make our same sexual or identity choices. Isn’t the entire point of our centuries of democratic evolution an expression of recognizing our pluralism rather than on insisting that our singular moral view, whether for abortion medications or transgender bathrooms, must be the rule for all?
In the name of self-protection, have we totally lost the idea of listening to others?
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