I cannot write about Donald Trump today. After his Labor Day “press conference” turned rant, there is nothing really new I can say. If after watching him there, folks can still support him, then there is no persuading them.
But I can write about denial.
Denial, Ohio
There is a great commercial about illegal drug use. It features the town of “Denial, Ohio” where the kids would never surf the medicine cabinets for pharmaceuticals, or get high. They are too “busy” doing “good things”. The tag line is, don’t live in Denial.
America is now not just a land of two political parties, but of two sets of basic facts. We cannot even agree on how many people have died from COVID-19. There are a significant number of our citizens who believe that it is all a “hoax”; just as they believe that Trump’s cooperation with Russia was a “hoax”, and his recent comments about the military is a “hoax”.
We can’t even agree (anymore) about the cause of the Civil War. A war that ended one hundred and fifty-five years ago is now an object of controversy. Some now seem to believe that slavery wasn’t the issue. They live in Denial.
Negotiate
As a local teacher’s union President, I learned about negotiations. After months of talking, with neither side moving an inch, both sides would share the cost of hiring mediators. These are professionals who would come in and take both negotiating “teams” through a series of exercises. If they were good at their job, the “teams” would re-discover the many areas where they actually had common goals. The mediators would work through those commonalities to reach small agreements. They would build on those successes to finally deal with the “big” issues, usually time and money.
Sometimes it worked, and we would mediate our way to a contract. Sometimes the battles prevented even those small agreements, and negotiations broke down. Then a combination of factors broke the stalemate. Community pressure on one side and teacher concern for their jobs on the other would ultimately result in some kind of deal. While there were times when we cleared our classrooms out and picketed the School Board, our local union never had to actually “go out” on strike.
We are still a nation of commonalities that, for the moment, we are refusing to recognize. Neither Red nor Blue has a monopoly on supporting the military, or even first responders. But somehow one side has claimed it all for themselves, and the other side has allowed itself to be maneuvered into saying that the police are all bad? No one on either side can reasonably believe those absolutes: that all military is good no matter what, and all police are bad no matter what. That’s just stupid. But here we are.
We are a nation in need of mediation.
Extremists
But back when I was in the local union leadership, I also understood that there would always be those who couldn’t be happy. No matter how “good” a contract we managed to get, there was always the “rump caucus” of teachers who felt like the negotiating team “gave away” too much. And there were also community members who felt that teachers were always “overpaid” and “under-worked”. Those vocal extremes could make life miserable, but seldom contributed to solving problems.
And America is the same way. There is a significant number of Americans, perhaps as much as twenty-percent, who have embraced a set of facts so far outside the norm that there is no commonality to work towards. They will never be satisfied, and should Donald Trump lose, they will continue to make life miserable.
And on the other side, there are a significant number of Americans, many of them younger folks, who don’t believe that anyone working in “the political system” is honest, or acting in good faith. They have no belief in the goodness of America, and don’t see the similarities that all Americans share.
Things in Common
So who are the mediators in a world in Denial?
Red or Blue, Trumper or Never, there is a commonality of Americans. We want a good life, and a better life for our children. A better life includes a climate that’s safe, a government that protects, and a wage that allows for more than just work. We all want to worship, or not, as we choose, and not have someone else’s beliefs forced upon us. Isn’t that a funny thought: everyone wants religious freedom, but many want others to live by the tenets of “their” beliefs.
We need to leave “Denial” and get into mediation. It’s the only way that America survives. But that’s not happening until after November – so in the meantime, try to find the little successes in your circle of life. Believe it or not, we all share some things in common; whether we wear a “MAGA” hat, or a “Resist” t-shirt.
Don’t live in Denial.
