What would our political discourse and even our thoughts look like if headlines were ambiguous and we had to form our opinions based solely on the content of an article and not the name at the top? – “TV personality Tweets _____”, “Politician passes _____.” We would probably surprise ourselves with how our outrage changed. We would most likely be much more moderate, and our debates would not contain such rancor.
If this political climate has taught me one thing, it is that our bias leads us to condemn behavior in a political opponent that we excuse from our own allies. Why is that? It seems to me that we put on political “beer goggles” for the faults of our own guy or gal, while the weaknesses of our adversaries are glaring and damning. Through these rose colored glasses, those on our side have only the best intentions, and their mistakes are a result of excusable personality flaws or poor decisions, but our rivals’ missteps are pure evil.
The reality is that when we are ideologically aligned with someone, we are willing to give them the benefit of the doubt because we think that they generally represent what we think is good for our nation or for humanity in general. It is much easier to look the other way when the alternative, in our minds, would destroy the nation or cause great harm.
In some ways, this is actually a healthy view. I am no purist. If you gave me the choice of a mild mannered, generally upstanding individual who supported slavery or a brash brawler who wanted to abolish it, I would side with the brute. We see one example of such a dichotomy in the Civil War when we compare men like the fearsome Northern General Sherman, famous for his rampage through the South, with the respected Southern General Lee, known for his courage and bravery. Nevertheless, given the choice, General Sherman was ideologically on the correct side of the war. The ability to support a flawed individual (as are we all) only remains healthy, however, when we can actually see his or her flaws and make decisions after weighing them in the balance. Too often in our modern political discourse, we do not even see or acknowledge those flaws. We practice a form of denial in which we almost deify our side while ascribing the vilest motives to the other.
In just the last week, both the political Right and Left have shown this hypocrisy in abundance. The Right displayed a glaring example of political excuse making in the aftermath of the Roseanne Barr debacle. The Left allowed a viral picture of immigrant children to expose their bias as they threw darts at the wrong man.
In the first case, the trouble began when Roseanne’s reboot of her famous sitcom ended as quickly as it began thanks to a shocking tweet. Perhaps even more disappointing than her ill-fated words, however, were many conservatives’ reactions to the cancellation. Roseanne was an odd hero- one that no one should have ever staked their flag on- but many Republicans were thrilled that a Trump supporter and a non-Leftist point of view was even being depicted on a major network. Unfortunately, Roseanne’s racist tweet directed at Valerie Jarrett confirmed the theories that many on the Left already had about Trump supporters and brought her tumbling down. Too many conservatives- even the president- further stoked the fires by responding not with condemnation but by flooding social media with “Whataboutism” (“What about Samantha Bee…Joy Behar…Keith Olbermann…Jimmy Kimmel…Kathy Griffin?”) or by becoming sudden crusaders for Roseanne’s free speech. The ONLY appropriate response to Roseanne’s hateful comments was to condemn them. Additionally, Roseanne’s free speech was never in question. She used it…and ABC used their equal freedom to fire her. Fellow conservatives, is this the hill we want to die on? Is this really what we want to defend in an ill-fated attempt to equal out media representation? While I myself would love to see more conservatives on TV, Roseanne is no representative of conservatism, and we should be the first to also condemn her words.
On the other side of the spectrum, the Left provided a prime example of political vilification. A viral photo of immigrant children sleeping on the floor of what looked like a form of cage was shared and re-shared on social media. Big names like John Favreau (Obama’s former speechwriter) and activist Linda Sarsour shared the image, condemning the Trump administration’s immigration policies in the harshest terms and demanding immediate change. Then, just as suddenly, it became clear that these photos were from the Obama administration days. The angry tweets were deleted and positive explanations for the pictures were quickly provided. Thousands of people who had been immediately outraged when the offender was Donald Trump were suddenly very ready to hear explanations of how the pictures made sense in the context of Barack Obama. This is yet another example of how our predisposition toward anger and our existing hatred of one man or woman can color our opinions and our actions, making us extend condemnation toward one person and grace toward another in the exact same scenario.
Whether we are excusing our guy or accusing theirs, much of the hypocrisy in our discourse is a result of our unconscious biases and our basic human weaknesses. Some of it is the fear that if we do not defend our own (even when they are wrong), our greater and more righteous cause will be lost. Still another motive is the desire to give ourselves a “leg up” by tearing down an opponent as soon as we see blood in the water, without much care for accuracy or fairness. None of these behaviors are unique to a political party. The irony is that we actually undermine our cause when we too clearly see others’ faults while being blind to our own.
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Jackie Chea is a blogger from San Antonio, Texas who holds a B.A. in Psychology and an M.A. in Community Counseling from the University of Texas at San Antonio. She writes on political and cultural issues from a conservative, religious standpoint. She lives in the Lone Star State with her husband Nick, her 5-year-old son Lincoln, and her rescue dogs. |
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