This is the second of a three part series on our politics as an American community. Last time I focused on the American ideal; this week is a discussion of "gotcha" politics, and the series will conclude with a call for personal introspection.
As we look to ways to rebuild our political system community, an important first step is to recognize the ways we talk to one another and how that plays a role in how we act as political creatures. Let's not kid ourselves--we are all political creatures. It's simply a matter of direction and degree...even non-participation is a measure of involvement, so long as one is living in a society with political infrastructure.
So how do we talk to each other? After we've sorted ourselves into the various political groupings, we take on unique language and techniques in talking to those within our own groups, and how we talk to those with the other team's jersey on. It's this second category that I want to take a close look at today, because it is the starting point for our ability to come together as a community and meet common challenges. How we first engage with one another often locks us into how we can eventually resolve a conflict.
In thinking about all these interactions, I've come up with a couple of broad categories, which coincidentally spell out the acronym "GOTCHA": generalizations, oversimplification, technicalities, conflation, hyperbole and hypocrisy, and arbitrariness (though, truth be told, examples of each certainly can and do overlap with one another). I will be the first to admit that I regularly employ all of these techniques, so this is not intended to be a self-righteous denunciation of other people. Rather, I find that if we are to ever hope to strengthen our community ties, we must clearly understand where they are the most weak. Part three of this community discussion will dive more into a search for answers.
Generalizations
Example: Republicans are racists. Democrats are communists.
Political parties in the United States are, by their very nature, "big tent" organizations. With a system built around accommodating only two parties, everyone on one side of the aisle gets sorted into one group, and everyone else goes into the other.
Despite its effectiveness in advancing agendas and enacting legislation (though one could argue the level of effectiveness has waned in recent years), the structure of the two party system often creates strange bedfellows, even within successful winning coalitions. This is how we end up with extreme white nationalists like David Duke on the right and old-style communists on the left being considered a part of the Republican/Democratic conversations.
Fundamentally I believe we understand those nuances--that the extremist elements within our political parties do not represent them as a whole. But in arguing with the other side, we quite frequently generalize those elements as speaking for the coalition as a whole; we say that where the majority of the party agree with its extremist elements on certain policies, then the majority itself must be extremist. But logically we know that is silly--members of the same party are very much likely to share some, but not all, areas of agreement. If they didn't, they would not be acting together in such a way.
Oversimplifications
Example: Tax cuts don't do anything to spur the economy; investment in infrastructure does. The ACA, through its individual mandate, is legislation that is anti-freedom.
Public policy is complex. Certain policy areas, such as health care, have complexities on scales that the vast majority of us will never be able to fully understand. Again, this is in large part how we end up with parties--groups of relatively like-minded individuals relying on the shared expertise of others in order to support mutual outcomes.
So, as we sit in our own groups, we are likely to have at least a rudimentary understanding of how a policy might work based on the support that our compatriots have shared with us (say, by reading an article from the Heritage Foundation or Center for American Progress). But we may not fully grasp the opinions of others who do not support that policy, or worse, we may choose to ignore or discount what they say.
This leads us to oversimplifying arguments in two different, opposing ways. Because we may understand our own position more fully, we're likely to oversimplify it in a way that highlights the positives and ignores any of the drawbacks. And then when arguing against another view, we will reduce their position down to the most simple explanation of evil intentions (again, sometimes because we ourselves don't fully appreciate the issue, or because we are deliberately trying to ascribe evil intentions).
Technicalities
Example: Actually, the "Muslim Ban" excludes some of the countries with the largest Muslim populations.
If oversimplification is the act of reducing a complex policy down to one or two simple points, technicalities represent the act of pulling out one individual item to support or excuse the intentions around its design. And it's very easy to do. In so many complex policy discussions, there are always nuances that would appear to run contrary to whatever a critic might be throwing at the policy. But that is simply the nature of complex systems; using minute details that don't have a close bearing to the broader arguments is just a distraction and obfuscation.
Obfuscation, of course, of which I myself am quite guilty.
Conflations
Example: President Trump's interest in improving Russian relations is no different from the Obama "reset." Ronald Reagan actually backed amnesty for illegal aliens when he was president.
There's probably a little bit of conflation in all of these examples, but without it, there isn't a "C" to spell "GOTCHA". The most tried-and-true tactic we all use in arguing a position is to try and point out how something that is either innocuous or was once supported by the other side is the same as what we are advocating in the moment.
Which is not to say that it's all smoke-and-mirrors deception on our parts. Often times we very genuinely see the connection in the points that we are making (otherwise we wouldn't make them...we're not all pathological, right?). But it is also true that we allow our preexisting beliefs and biases to cloud the way we receive and understand facts, which means that just because we see a clear conflation between two points in an argument, that does not necessarily mean that others can see it just as easily.
Hyperbole and Hypocrisy
Example: This job-killing proposal will end the X industry as we know it. I voted for the war before I voted against it.
These two "h" words are so common as tactics in our discourse that I couldn't not bring up both of them here.
We all know hyperbole when we see it--the most common instance of it in any argument is the inevitable comparison of some person to Hitler or some group to the Nazis (see: Godwin's Law). Here's a tip: NEVER COMPARE ANYONE TO HITLER. Unless you have definitive proof that the person you are referring to has attempted to take over a continent and is complicit in the ethnic cleansing of millions of people, it is never, under any circumstances, warranted.
Obviously there are many other examples of hyperbole. When we are being hyperbolic, it's again not necessarily out of a place that is intentionally trying to overblown a point. But in the heat of a discussion, we when we feel something is so important and so utterly clear that we can't believe the dimwitted person who is failing to understand us, the next best thing we can do is go over the top in demonstrating its importance.
But calling anyone Hitler will only further alienate those involved in the argument.
As for hypocrisy, it is one of the most common side effects of our highly polarized and hyper-partisan political environment. We get so caught up in defending the actions of people on our political "teams," that when either those people change their position or are replaced by people who hold different positions, we find ourselves matching the newly established rhetoric--even when it seems contrary to what we have said previously. We don't do it to be deceptive or without principal, and in fact we can often point to why we are being logically consistent (usually with the help of a few technicalities), but we do it. And we open ourselves up to charges of being hypocrites, and the barbs continue to just be traded back and forth.
Arbitrariness
When at long last our arguments have degraded to the point that there aren't any of the above opportunities left to support our position or denigrate the other, we resort to simple, arbitrary counterpoints. I didn't provide any examples because, by their nature, they can vary widely and have absolutely no bearing on the subject being discussed. But it's often a tool for refusing to acknowledge that your own point may be in the wrong...the verbal equivalent of turning over the table with the board game on it and walking away.
What It All Means
It would be folly to suggest that this is a comprehensive list of the things we say to each other in the heat of a political argument, and that if we just eliminated them entirely, our connections to one another would strengthen. Political issues are extremely important--in some cases they are the difference between life and death. We hold our individual positions for important reasons, and it's not a simple matter of throwing them out the window for the sake of getting along better.
But as I'll discuss more next time, it's important that in actively trying to rebuild our community, we need to at least be aware of the things we do and say, and mindful of times that we might be able to pull back from their usage in ways that enhance our connectivity to each other.