I don’t write about politics on this blog. In general, I think we have become obsessed with politics in this country, and national politics at that, to the detriment of thought about more important topics to our health as a society and as human beings. But I continue to see people put forward the idea that, in choosing the next Democratic presidential candidate, we must have a candidate capable of “fighting fire with fire.” I disagree.
When the fire truck shows up to your burning home, do the firefighters get out their hoses and spray more fire onto the house? No, they spray water.
When firefighters show up to put out a forest fire, they may use fire, but only to burn up in a controlled way the dried wood, leaves, and grasses that the blaze would use to continue its destruction.
The worst thing of the many worst things that Trump has done to America, in my opinion, is to turn our culture into one of constant violence and battle, of seeing everything in terms of winning and losing with dominance as its final goal, and of labeling those who do not share our opinions as bad or crazy or evil. That is the nature of polarization, the polarization that we all bemoan as what is wrong with America. Pundits worry about our increasing lack of civility, of tolerance, and seem baffled by our inability to participate in community. Yet these are all the symptoms of a culture that has been overrun with metaphors of war, of winning at all costs, of toxic competition.
For the Democrats to nominate a candidate who is better at being brutal than Trump is to simply continue us down the road that is already destroying our country. But the opposite of Trump - the opposite of crassness, violence, cheating, and spiritual brutality – is not simply being good-natured and “nice” – that was the mistake we made with Biden and Harris and Walz – but rather we need someone who is cool-headed, fair, empathic, thoughtful, reflective, capable of countering arguments in a way that doesn’t diminish the person with whom they disagree, capable of changing their minds after considering the viewpoints of others. We need someone who does not encourage and inspire family discord over holiday meals, someone who does not need to demonize others in order to feel heroic themself – hell, someone who doesn’t cheat at golf! In short, someone who can restore respect, dignity, and caring to our sense of what it is to be an American.
In short, we don’t need more fire, need water. Cool, clear, calm water. There are candidates available who possess such a personality, and we should find and support them. But we should not, at any cost, look for a firebrand. We need to be reminded of our “better angels,” and our common humanity, that wealth comes with responsibilities and too much wealth is greed, which is one of the seven deadly sins along with pride, envy, wrath, gluttony, lust, and sloth —which have long been considered the root of spiritual and cultural decay. We cannot continue to be led by people whose souls have been marinated in bile.