When I was much younger, I generally would tell people just what I was thinking, on just about any subject. And as email became a common communication mode, I would also send emails that sometimes were quite inflammatory. One time in particular, I sent an insulting note to a very prominent academic who had rebuffed my request to inform his students about a job opening I had, based on his (what I thought of as stuffy) opinion of his school, in comparison to the comparatively modest reputation of the industrial lab I worked at. It took me a little while to recover from the fallout.
I make no claim of deep wisdom, despite my advanced age, but there are a few things I’ve learned, and one of them is this: when you feel anger and want to point it at someone, go ahead and write it down – but don’t send it! Come back to it when you’ve cooled down and are in a position to better assess the best thing to do.
I don’t mean that youth is wrong to act on these impulses, or that a more senior restraint is right; youthful enthusiasm, even when extreme, can be a powerful force for good (or for other things, admittedly). But experience did teach me that a more restrained approach was far more effective, and I often counseled others to try this approach rather than to inflame animosities.
In our country in 2018, we now have a significant part of the population shouting at our screens. We can’t stand what the current White House resident is doing, or what his minions are doing. We are alternately depressed and angry. We sometimes seek relief by focusing on anything else but him, and sometimes wallow in cable news coverage (or topical comedy shows with our own perspective) and shake our heads in disbelief.
There’s nothing wrong with these reactions – they are natural and human. I’m right there too – the current administration is an abomination, in so many ways. But what then?
In today’s New York Times, Frank Bruni argues for restraint. He suggests that public figures back off from incendiary remarks about the president, and notes:
“When you answer name-calling with name-calling and tantrums with tantrums, you’re not resisting him. You’re mirroring him. You’re not diminishing him. You’re demeaning yourselves. Many voters don’t hear your arguments or the facts, which are on your side. They just wince at the din.”
He is probably right; public figures on “our” side acting out in this way may not really be helping. But in this blog I’m more concerned with the rest of us, not public figures. Once we have finished yelling at the screen, or enjoying the guilty pleasure of agreeing with a 4-letter description of someone in the administration, what next? Don’t we want to change things?
I suppose that part of the attraction of being stuck in the anger is that we often don’t know what we can possibly do to change things. But recent post-2016 elections should tell us otherwise – some of them were extremely close, and progressive candidates either won or lost by a tiny margin. Not only do our votes really count, but our activism counts as well – can we convince other depressed friends of the importance of their vote?
To specifics: the upcoming midterms provide an opportunity to have a significant check on the outrages of He-Who-I-Don’t-Feel-Like-Naming and his sycophants. But given widespread gerrymandering, voter suppression, and the fundamental Constitutional compromise that gave so much weight to low population states, among other factors, turning the House blue in 2018 is far from a given (and the Senate is going to be even harder). It’s going to take a sustained effort.
A blog like this gives me the opportunity to pretend that I know what others should do. So, here’s my opinion: yell at the screen all you want, enjoy inflammatory rhetoric without guilt, but then set it down and start thinking about making sure that everyone you know actually votes in November. 2018 and 2020 give us the opportunity to turn what has happened into a blip rather than a trend. It’s important!