Election 2020 is About Relationship: Turning Towards One Another or Turning Against One Another?
As a marriage therapist, it’s clear to me that the polarization in the country between Democrats and Republicans seem to parallel the polarization I often see happening between romantic partners. I’ve been observing these parallels for some time now.
When couples come for therapy, most often there is hostility and intense anger and resentment. One or both parties are suffering under a plague of protest, feeling threatened and under attack. And if experience holds true, there is a deeper underlying mixed atmosphere of economic and sexual revolt when the grievances are rooted in — conflict over differences, unconscious childhood trauma, feeling criticized, unappreciated, unimportant …unworthy.
All of this pain has lead the couple to — a crisis within their marital system.
I think a similar dynamic holds true in our current political atmosphere. I’ve been tracking attitudes and beliefs in this country — as the country as grown more on social issues, LGBTQ rights, more egalitarian about gender roles and racial equality, more expansive in democratic representation, more secular, cosmopolitan and global. This transformation has triggered a deep and intense reaction among those who feel threatened, marginalized and left behind, disempowered — creating a crisis in the political system and a maximum point of conflict — over the fact that we are different.
With these parallels in therapy, one of my goals is to try to get at the couple’s deeper values, attitudes, beliefs — to confront the myths, opinions, (conscious or unconscious) they have about each other so they can heal the divide, deepen their intimacy and connection and relate to each other — essence to essence— beyond the smoke-and-mirrors, self-righeousness, self-deception, lies and false assumptions.
I also help them to get present with each other — here-n-now, communicate (listen, not just talk), rather than sitting in judgment or refereeing their historical conflicts. We are reconstructing … reauthoring a new story of marriage — establishing a new way for the couple to be together in their relationship that works for both parties.
Similarly, America is in the process of reconstructing a new national identity — what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. characterized as a “beloved community” directly confronting lies, deeply entrenched national mythologies rooted in underlying issues of systemic and institutional racism, inequality, and white supremacy.
“All of life is relationship with yourself, with me, and with everyone and everything in your life — even if we disagree with one another.
The two forces that we deal with in love relationships are, I believe, the same two forces that the nation is dealing with — empathy and conflict. Although empathy that pulls us closer and conflict that pushes away, look like opposite forces, together they are powerful relational mechanisms which can create deep transformation in the relationships between partners in a couple-ship and members of a nation. Empathy is a deep understanding and an inner experience of the other’s reality. Empathy can be experienced when couples or citizens of a nation have the same shared experience.
Most of us experienced a refreshing shared experience watching and/or reading about the amazing, heartfelt tribute to Congressman John Lewis. Each of the three Presidents that spoke and President Obama giving the Eulogy challenged us to continue to maintain what John Lewis fought for and to maintain what he gave his life for — a voting rights bill for which he shed blood — a Bill which is now being looted.
This particular Bill has a piece of legislation pending and it’s being named after John Lewis. Still, we can’t get Mitch “Bull” McConnell to bring the Bill to the Senate floor. And still, it was vital and inspiring that these Presidents stood and said what they said about “continuing.”
Simultaneously, darkness loomed. Not only did Trump not join in the funeral or the mourning, he chose this week of mourning Congressman John Lewis to speak out and use racist language in support of housing discrimination. In a tweet to white folks (I don’t think he knows that white folks aren’t the only ones who live in the suburbs), he said he is going to keep ‘them’ out of their neighborhoods so their properties won’t go down. What them?
Trump also choose the final day of mourning John Lewis to say, “We ought to delay voting.” Could this be a sign that Trump is feeling the effects of his polarizing, racist message? I don’t think so but I had to ask myself the question.
Although Trump has no constitutional power to enact his idea to delay voting, I don’t trust that the Republican Governors aren’t working behind the scenes to interfere on a local level. If we are going to stare into the sun at what Donald Trump is and how he divides this country, we need to say it and call it what it is — a strategy rooted in systemic racism.
What warmed my heart about those who spoke was that they did not separate John Lewis’ personal passing from the policies he fought for. Political is personal. Nor did they ignore what Donald Trump is doing and how what he does was a violation of everything that John Lewis stood for.
As John Lewis was laid to rest today, Donald Trump, who was not in attendance, gave a speech where he talked about litigation and voter fraud — launching a frontal attack on mail-in ballots. How sad for a President to not know that that mail-in ballots and absentee ballots were the same. Not once, but twice he said, “It could take years to know who wins in November.”
This is a jump from Dogwhistle to Dog-barking!
At the same time President Obama comes across with an all out full indictment of this current administration — the state-sponsored violence, housing policy, and voting. President Obama went after Trump and Brian Kemp. It was one of the highlights of what I saw and heard in President Obama’s speech. He spoke so beautifully and passionately about what John Lewis stood for because it’s clear that this current administration is desperately trying to take it all away and rub it in our faces.
Those of us are old enough understood what President Obama meant when he said, “Bull Connor may be gone. But today we witness with our own eyes police officers kneeling on the necks of Black Americans. George Wallace may be gone, but we can witness our Federal Agency sending weapons and batons against peaceful demonstrators. We may not have to guess the number of jelly beans in a jar to cast a ballot, but even as we sit here there are those in power who are doing their darndest to discourage people from voting by closing polling and targeting minorities and students with restrictive I.D. laws and attacking our voting rights with surgical precision, even undermining the postal service in a run up to an election that’s going to be dependent on mail-in ballots so people don’t get sick.”
I’ve watched documentaries about Bloody Sunday and saw John Lewis getting beaten. We have to get up and be a part of the fight for a new America. Courage doesn’t come from turning against each other, but turning toward each other. “Not by sowing hatred and division, but by spreading love and trust.”
Right now, I’m not that worried by Donald Trump. I am worried about the folks sitting on the couch, feeling angry, resentful, indignant, un-affected by and indifferent to what is and has been happening in this country. If you’re someone who wasn’t moved by what was happening in the church where John Lewis’ body laid in the coffin with the American flag draped over it — I am really sad for you and for those who love you.
I was brought up to have a strong work ethic — I’ve been working since I was fifteen years old and now I’m in my late 50’s. And I wouldn’t be here today — an Ivy League educated Black women, positioned to begin a Ph.D program next month, working in a respected profession that I love and serve whole-heartedly, living where I live with a person who adores me if it weren’t for those who continue to challenge the injustice, inequity, racism, bigotry, greed and violence that Donald Trump stands for.
Martin Luther King once said, “We are complicit when we tolerate injustice. It will not get better in the by-and-by.”
John Lewis’s life’s work was about voting and folks having access to equal housing and mortgages. Sadly, Trump in no way showed any kind of sensitivity to John Lewis, whether he agreed with him or not; he decided to use our grief and mourning as a time to take a shot at the things that John Lewis stood for. That’s sad, pathetic, and cruel — no matter how you look at it.
The fact is, we have to continue to fight for the dream that John Lewis is talking about. The we way honor those we’ve lost is to deliver an urgent political message. What President Obama spoke about will hopefully be a rallying cry going forward.
We’re at a dangerous point here and I think what Congressman John Lewis would be doing if he were alive now is having this conversation — the conversation about how Americans can best prepare to let the rule of law and not the impulsive, selfish whim and ambition of a single man, of a single party overwhelm a 240-year experiment in Constitutional Democracy, which I admit is flawed, but it’s the best alternative we have.
For four years Donald Trump has caused us to wonder whether or not every democratic solution or law is legitimate — about whether or not to inject disinfectant in our bodies as a way to cure of us coronavirus — about whether or not to take Hydroxychloroquine to prevent or treat it. In light of this, why wouldn’t Trump attempt to elicit suspicion and/or cause us to wonder about the legitimacy of the American election process?
Is it such a bad idea for Blacks and whites, Latino and Asian voters to be able to get out and profess our right to vote — to profess our democratic choice on election day —is it so bad that it needs to be fought so fiercely? This was certainly not John Lewis’ view.
The choice ahead of us is as stark now as it was on the eve of the Civil War. America can choose a relationally liberated future that acknowledges past racial sins — or we can double-down on the same willful blindness that got us in this mess — aided by rationalizations that describe the incomprehensible as the “cost of doing business.”
Let end with a moment of silence and the words of the late great John Lewis.
“Humanity has been in this soul-wrenching existential struggle for a long time. We must put away our willingness to profit from the exploitation of others. Love and non-violence is the most excellent way. Now it’s [our ] turn to let freedom ring. When historians pick up their pens to write the story of the 21st century let them say that it was [our ] generation that laid down the heavy burdens of hate, violence and aggression at last. And that peace finally triumphed over violence aggression and war. So I say to you walk with the wind brothers and sisters and let the spirit of peace and the power of everlasting love be [our] guide.”
Call to Action: Let’s turn toward each other instead of turning against each other.
