outside it's America

I went out for lunch today, met a sales rep for one of the local business pubs for lunch at a trendy restaurant in a sort-of trendy suburban pedestrian mall. I was sitting at the stoplight waiting to turn, minding my own business when a guy pulled up next to me, flipped me off and called me a “n*gger lover” before speeding off, leaving me open-mouthed and stunned.

I have four bumper stickers on the back of my SUV. One refers to my status as an alumnus of Macalester College, one is the insignia of a band I have long favored, one is the Wisconsin blue fist made famous (or infamous, depending on your interpretation) during the protests of the last year, and the last is an Obama Biden sticker. It doesn’t take a lot of intelligence to guess what this individual must have been referring to when he decided to seek my attention.

It took a gentle tap on the horn from the car behind me to get me moving again, at least physically, but mentally I’m still stuck at that light, staring at that car pulling away from me, dumbfounded.

What are we doing here, exactly? How far from any attempt however cursory at civil discourse have we fallen? What the hell is up, America?

Here’s the thing: my political beliefs are aligned most closely to the Democratic party. I believe, after a lot of research and soul-searching over the years, that it is the party that stands more often than not on the right side of history. I have voted for Republicans before. I have voted for people who didn’t claim any political affiliation whatsoever. I voted for the person I believed was best for the job.

Here’s the other thing: I’ve known many, many good and decent people whose political beliefs were entirely opposite mine. I count them among my close friends and family. We have intense conversations, we disagree vehemently, we break bread and move forward, together, without thinking less of the other person because our approaches to problem-solving the many and scary problems facing our cities and states and country, our world, are different.

Somewhere between the micro and the macro, however, we lose all sense of responsibility for our words and actions. And in doing so, we have eroded with terrifying speed an already crumbling foundation for political and civil discourse. We see it in Congress, we see it in statehouses, in the anonymity of the Internet. Apparently we are now seeing it at street corners.

I’m sure I’ve been guilty of the same. Maybe not in words as violent or ugly as those, but I know I’ve maligned the whole, used generalities out of laziness. I can’t do it anymore. I won’t. I am exhausted by the invective around me, the circular rhetoric that appeals to nothing more than base emotion and certainly not our better angels. And man, we haven’t even gotten into the thick of the campaign season yet.

I have seen this week what hate breeds, in a temple in my home state, a few minutes away from where I used to lay my head at night. I don’t know much, but I do know you don’t win hearts by spewing poison. My first grader could tell you that.

Wouldn’t it be nice if, before you referred to our president as trash you thought about all the people in your life who respect the man, and how they might feel about that? Would you paint them with the same brush? If before you made some offhand remark about those idiotic and evil Republicans you thought about your uncle, who has never voted for a Democrat in his life but who is certainly neither an idiot or evil?

We have every right to disagree with each other, and we have every right to be passionate and vocal in our debates. You don’t like President Obama? Congratulations, you’re American, you don’t have to and you can tell the world just how much. But please, tell me why, like we were talking about it over coffee. You think House Speaker Boehner is the epitome of everything that is wrong about this country? You’re allowed. Give me something other than that he’s the Anti-Christ, though, because that’s not going to fly anymore.

Not with me. Come at me, bro. Come at me hard, but armed with something other than vitriol. Please. Even here on the Internet. I’m tired of fighting, and name-calling, and maybe I’m naïve. Apparently there still lies somewhere in this cynic’s heart some lingering idealistic belief that we can be better than this, that we want to. Because man, seriously, after today? I kind of want to give up.