MAGA, Politics, Racism and the Tragic Exsanguination of Relationships
Last week I mentioned that it would be my last post on Medium for a while. That wasn’t entirely true as you can see. My heart has been heavy reflecting on a subject that I am impassioned about and that I’ve spent most of my adult life studying, researching, collecting data about and practicing — RELATIONSHIPS.
These days we spend more time than usual on social media connecting with folks since face-to-face contact is so limited and because if we’re meeting one person we’re also meeting their contacts even if we cannot see them.
Lately I have dreaded going on Facebook or reading the news.
My heart and all of my senses are immediately and invariably pierced by the vitriol, assaults on others’ dignity and ontological arguments occurring in relationships between friends, colleagues, friends of friends and family members, and it has become difficult for me to recover my grounding in a felt-sense of the world as a safe place that welcomes who I am and those I love. It’s hard sometimes to post or take in some of the inspiring messages that manage to leak through the Facebook algorithm.
There is, of course, a reason that I feel this way — we have an impact on those around us and vice-versa.
The violent rupture of divisiveness and lack of spiritual regard are profoundly traumatic. It severs us from our essential nature which is — LOVE.
It is shocking and it hurts and it is painful to explain the loss of relationships — people we loved and respected.
There is just no cushion for the rejection and hurt feelings caused by these separations and divisions.
Nothing comforts us when our relationships aren’t working and we can’t see any opportunity for repair in sight.
We’re not just being ripped apart along political lines, but the fragile fabric of our most intimate and deepest connections with people are being torn right now.
Marriages
Committed relationships,
Families,
Lifelong friendships,
Faith communities, and … social and professional circles that survived every previous assault from within and without — may not survive this presidency.
This election is going to leave half of us elated and triumphant, and the other half sickened, angry and terrified — and that emotional divide is going to continue to grow and strain the already tenuous connections and bonds between us.
There has been and certainly will be an enormous wave of ghosting and unfriending, more silent disconnections, verbal battering on social media and explosive middle-finger send-offs. Family gatherings aborted and cold silences with our neighbors.
As I write this article I can feel my own grief and sadness.
There will be an increase in separation in the small and close spaces where the forces of life, meaning, values, potential and purpose are truly measured — our relationships.
Yes, I have snoozed and unfriended a few folks on Facebook and I’m sure I’ve been snoozed and unfriended.
I didn’t snooze or unfriend them because we disagreed on issues of race, politics, fairness, justice, etc., but mainly because I cannot stomach the intellectual laziness, proud ignorance, lack of ability to take responsibility for a point of view and — just to keep it real — the f*cking idiocy.
I also cannot stomach the unleashed insanity and emotional immaturity of those who call themselves Adults but behave like Children.
And … I will never, ever allow someone who lacks even a modicum of intelligence and ability to think critically try to compensate for what is lacking in them to attack my character.
No one has that right!
Anyway, what does anyone’s point of view have to do with who I am?
Here’s the insanity of it and why it’s unacceptable. Out of curiosity, we might ask someone a question about something they said or did and suddenly this person starts calling you names, blaming you for having a different point of view, popping off — and saying nasty sh*t about you and questioning your citizenship in this country.
This is ridiculous! Makes you wonder how some of these folks make it through High School?
It is clear that they have not developed enough security within their own sense of self, trust in their own abilities or have matured enough to listen to an opposing point of view without hurling abuses. It is also clear that they are only capable of defending their beliefs — it’s as far as they can go before getting personal. Sadly, these folks are too weak and insecure to even try to understand another point of view.
If they managed to take a breath during a conversation, their fists are balled, guns cocked, eyes bulging out, and they are locked and ready to clap back in ways that are violent and dismissive, much like Donald Trump, who lashes out at anyone who disagrees with him and has not even the smallest ability to listen to a different point of view.
And if he can manage to listen at least for a nanosecond, his responses are bungling, hate-spewing lies, blaming and filled with attacks on a person’s character.
If only, he could just say, “I don’t know, but let me find out.”
If Trump were really a genius and as strong as he claims, he’d welcome questions, different points of view. He work at respecting all races, religions, social classes, Dems, etc., and probably not feel so threatened by “differences” — but he’s not.
Differences terrify Trump and MAGA’s. I’ve met a few of them and when they aren’t acting in threatening ways … posturing — they manage to say what they really want— to be seen, heard, accepted, and important.
Doesn’t everyone want that?
Instead, like children, they throw Adult tantrums, point their guns at innocent people and cause senseless chaos. Children act-out like this on the playground before they’re taught how to respect others, share and take turns?
This is a problematic way for an Adult to conduct him/herself in any relationship — but if you’re the leader of the free world, it’s fatal.
It’s clear that Donald Trump has lived a relationally isolated life, behind an ego-fulfilling facade of walls, exclusivity, lacking unconditional love and — unchallenged restless inner ghosts.
Nothing prepared us to deal relationally in a healthy manner with the devastating ways in which the past 4 years have awakened our own restless inner ghosts, unraveling our psyches.
It is not America’s clear fractures of partisan battles, differences in opinion on the issues, the loud tribalism and attention-seeking sideshow press conferences that are doing the greatest damage right now.
The real existential soul and flesh-eating disease corrupting this nation originates from the relational exsanguination happening around kitchen tables, in church pews, in zoom meetings and in neighborhoods.
It is in the relational ruptures and separations that we’re all experiencing — hundreds of millions of losses to collectively grieve every day.
This is the devastating story we are not talking about right now. It is the one far below the bold type trending news.
I imagine that some relationships will manage to survive beyond November — if we invest in them, if we keep listening, if we are willing to grow up and recognize that we are not the center of the universe, if we are willing participants in mutual understanding — but others will not and that is probably necessary.
Perhaps we’ve simply seen too much about the deepest contents of people’s hearts to ever feel safety in their presence again. Maybe we’ll never feel like they are home for us anymore.
Either way, we need to name and reckon with this very specific and metastatic grieving — the accumulating losses of people we love who are still here, the death of our relationships.
A national tragedy or a new opportunity to grow up?
I have always and will continue to believed in the power, growth … the possibilites and the transformation that can happen through empathy and deep connections in our relationships.
So I’m praying for a relational miracle.
