WE CONTRIBUTE TO OUR POLITICAL VIOLENCE

Christopher Ebbe, Ph.D.    9-25

Most of us bemoan yet another act of political violence—the shooting of Charlie Kirk in Utah, yet none of our leaders take any responsibility for this violence, and as a group, they should.  Our politics has descended to an activity that excuses any action that works to get votes, whether or not it is dangerous or unethical.  So, name-calling, demeaning and degrading your opponents, and using identity politics are all OK, because they work to get votes, especially in primaries.  Most who use this technique to get elected would say that they don’t really want their opponents to feel inferior or get worked up enough to shoot someone, and they would excuse their actions with “I can’t do any good for the country if I don’t get elected.”  If we allow them to use these techniques, though, we are guaranteeing that we will have more political violence.  To preserve our democracy, we would have to focus on cooperation (including compromise) rather than on dominance, since dominance implies controlling the lives of others in ways they do not wish their lives to be controlled.  None of us wants that, but our two-party system has become a struggle for dominance rather than an effort to outdo each other in good government.  And, politics should be about what is best for everyone in the country, not just what is best for some people.

A bedrock principle of psychology in social interaction is that we all desire to receive basic respect from others, at all times.  This is the reason why we have greetings upon encountering another (“How’s it going?”  “How are you?”), to convey by our manner of speaking as well as our words that we recognize that the other person is at least potentially OK and worthy of interaction and that we mean no harm.  The most common method of trying to get other people to do what we want is to make it clear that we disapprove of them.  Being degraded conveys that we are not as worthy as others and that we will likely receive fewer of the rewards of being in society because of being degraded and therefore inferior.  Being degraded also creates instant resentment (in anyone, including you) and may lead to violence.  It may even swing an election (a basket of deplorables, anyone?).  Some people will contain their resentment without violence, but not everyone.  Politicians may think that they are only speaking to their own supporters when they degrade their opponents, but that is not possible any more with our various channels of instant and mass communication.

It is axiomatic, then, that degrading and attempting to dominate another lead to resentment, probably to anger, and possibly to violence.  If we wish to decrease the level of political violence in our country, then, we should eliminate our degradation of our opponents, and we must not do it ourselves.  It’s tough, I know, to respect those who have ideas that are different from ours, and it’s easy to simply say that they are wrong or stupid.  It’s difficult to view those with opinions that are different from ours as equals, but they have reasons for their opinions, just as we do, so we would do better to try to understand why they have those opinions (as well as analyze why we have ours) rather than condemn them outright.  Demeaning opponents is a cheap way for leaders to develop strong feelings in their supporters, but it makes us opponents and will lead to more overall violence.  Yes, free speech is important, and we should be able to voice criticisms, but it can be done in a more factual, objective way, rather than by attempts to inflame emotion.

It’s not only leaders who engage in this demeaning talk, since political differences invite us to first try to get rid of any ideas we don’t like, especially if we don’t have an accurate view of those who differ from us and assume that they are even “worse” than they actually are.  Only with introspection and retrospection can we hold onto our sanity with regard to what a democracy needs to function.  We would do much better without the (commercially motivated) earnest righteousness of MSNBC and the righteous contempt dripping from most Fox News’ programming!

A bedrock principle of our country is that all citizens are equal before the law, and we can only have this kind of equality if we acknowledge others’ basic equality and human worth.  Thinking that your ideas are better than those of others does not give you any right to demean them and does not mean that you are “better than” them.  Viewing yourself as an equal, as a citizen, to all other citizens, with no more right to have your way than they have to have theirs, should bring an appropriate and cleansing humility to each of us.  If we continue to seek superiority and dominance, our democracy will continue on a path to autocracy.

Another factor leading toward violence is that there is a considerable amount of misperceiving of our political opponents.  The “other side” is too often incorrectly perceived as being more extreme and more inclined to violence than they actually are, which may be a result of exaggerated statements that leaders use to develop follower loyalty.  Our inclination to violence would be reduced, then, if we saw those who think differently more accurately.

Our current primary election process invites extremism (as more extreme and more emotional citizens are likely to be a larger proportion of voters in primaries than general elections).  Parties could poll all members (by mail or internet) instead of only offering an opportunity to vote in a primary.  Parties are not an arm of the government, and government should not pay for their primaries.  They can hold them on their own or change to another method.

Blaming the mentally ill and addicts for political violence is an easy out for some, since then neither politicians nor ourselves need to take any blame; we can just make prison sentences longer, detain people who just “might” do something violent before they do it, and (least likely to happen) adequately fund our mental health and addiction services.  This is reminiscent of the outcomes from school and other mass shootings when we blame the mentally ill and addicts instead of controlling the availability of guns better.

What can we do?

1. Focus on issue solutions and comparing issue solutions of various candidates, rather than on who the candidates “are” (age, ethnicity, gender, status, party, etc.).

2. Attend to the integrity, intentions, and future vision of candidates, rather than their identities.

3. Let your choice of leaders know that you will not vote for them if they use degrading others as a method of gaining votes.

4. Suggest to candidates that, when it is known which candidates will be on the ballot, they all get together and discuss this issue of demeanment and agree to avoid it during their campaigns.

5. Point out to your friends and acquaintances the issue stands of candidates, and make clear that this is what counts, rather than gossip, how candidates speak about each other, or the candidates’ party affiliations.

6. Call for adequate funding for treatment of those with mental problems and/or addictions.

7. Call for an end to party primaries paid for by all taxpayers.

8. Call on all candidates to “go public” with endorsing one of these two options:
            a. I, _________, a candidate for ________, affirm that I will do whatever it
takes to get elected, since that is more important than
maintaining civility, fairness, and rationality in our elections, and
to that end I will criticize and demean other candidates or groups
of citizens in society as necessary to get elected.           
b. I, _________, a candidate for ________, affirm that maintaining
civility, fairness, and rationality in our elections is more important
than getting elected myself, and that I will not criticize and
demean other candidates or groups of citizens in society in order
to get elected.

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