As a follow up to yesterday’s blog post re the TedX Talk I’d give if I ever gave a TedX talk, I want to mention the value of “tone”.
Part of expressing kindness, and being kind, is one of “tone.” Instead of being as obstreperous as the other side (and I’m referring to both sides, here!), it’s important to tone down the rhetoric and to focus on aspirations, not accusations.
I suggest that we take a lesson from President Biden when it comes to tone
The GOP votes in locksteps against Biden’s policies, but they uniformly and with one voice “love the guy personally.” He was one of them for decades and he has built personal relationships with such diverse ideologues as Mitch McConnell.
This doesn’t mean he caters to Mitch. What it means is he listens to Mitch, understands his political reality, and knows when he’s serious and when he’s blowing smoke up people’s asses. He has his number. And he remains kind and collegial, but he’s resolute when it comes to getting stuff done for the American people.
We don’t help our cause when we denounce and denigrate folks we disagree with
The only thing that fighting with our gloves off, bare-knuckled, will get us, is bloodied. Most voters — those who are more invested in winning than in fighting — are going to peel off and vote for third parties, which will serve only to lower the total vote counts for the candidates we support. (Again, this is true for both sides.)
Most voters are sick of the vitriol and fighting among the candidates of the two parties. They want solutions, not bloodied noses.
Voters want to see adults in governmental chambers, not pugnacious pugilists or arrested-development toddlers with tantrums. Voters want to hear what the parties are envisioning and working toward when it comes to our mutual future on this tiny blue dot in the cosmos. Only to the extent that candidates can inspire most American voters to champion their vision ca they consider themselves viable candidates and parties. So far, it is the DEMS whose messages remain clear — aspirational, objective-focused, and relational — as opposed to pointedly oppositional and reactionary.
Who’s Just Talking the Talk, and Who’s Walking the Walk?
Don’t just listen to what your so-called representatives are saying, pay attention to how they’re voting.
The bottom line here is that when you post on social media, don’t be poking people in the eyes. They will be able to see your point a lot more clearly if they haven’t been blinded first by your poke!
Poking people in the eye only leads them to think you hate them and don’t care about their comfort and wellbeing. I very much doubt that’s the message you’re intending to convey, but it’s the one you’re sending. But if that is the message you intend, all I can say is shame on you. Rethink what your messaging is doing to people who might otherwise listen to and even admire you, even if they have reached polar opposite conclusions than you have about the trajectory of this nation.
Your power is in your vote. Whoever wins the popular vote should lead. (The Electoral College should be discarded as the racist, obstructionist policy it was designed to be.) And, most of the time, I think you’ll find that those who lead with kind, helpful policies win. There are exceptions, of course, but since the moral arc of this nation (and the universe) bends toward justice, for the most part kindness begets kindness, animosity begets animosity.
And I’m so very tired of the animosity. Aren’t you? Befriend your friends again. Become their light, not their darkness.
Again, everyone is in pain under the current circumstances. Be a healer. If you don’t feel you can’t do that, then work on healing yourself first and, in the meantime, at least don’t hurt anyone else again using unkind words.
Civilization beckons. Rejoin it!
