Politics of the Personal: The Turning

[Part 2 in a five-part series. See Part 1. [1]]

There were two crucial turning points in my relationships with conservatives: December 12, 2000, and September 11, 2001.

When the Supreme Court handed down its ruling in Bush v. Gore, it became clear to me that not only had the conservative movement grown into a dogmatic ideology, it had metastasized into a power-hungry, devouring claque of ideologues for whom winning was all that mattered. I also knew, of course, that not everyone who participated in the movement was like this -- but they were all too willing to let those who were run a steamroller over every basic principle of democratic rule -- especially its core of equity and fair play -- in the name of obtaining the White House.

I remember rather vividly, like the day JFK was shot, where I was and what I was doing, the evening the ruling came down. I was in a small harbor town in western Washington, staying with the parents of some close friends (who are themselves good friends) while I covered a manslaughter trial in a nearby town. He is an accountant, she a homemaker, good moderate churchgoing Democrats. We all sat together and watched the bulletins come over the newscasts (I think we were tuned to MSNBC).

And I remember she turned to me and said: "I feel sad. Because I can't vote a mixed ticket anymore." He nodded.

So did I. I knew exactly what she meant.

Since that day, I’ve felt, it is frankly foolishness to even vote for a Republican, at least for the time being. Not because the party lacks candidates who are utterly unworthy of support; there are, indeed, smart, thoughtful and honest Republicans even still, though they are harder to come by. But even they represent, and remain an integral part of, a party that has become nearly absolutely corrupted by its near-absolute power, and almost permanently tainted by its lust for utter control of the political and social landscape.

I decided then that, for the foreseeable future, I could not cast my vote for any Republican on any ballot. The GOP, after its performance in 2000 -- and especially considering its performance in the intervening years -- will not have my vote. They have proven themselves fundamentally untrustworthy, and thus unworthy of the responsibilities and honor of public office. And I know that I am not alone in this: The GOP no longer will have the votes of many other middle-of-the-road Americans, including my friends' parents.

Ultimately, all politics is personal, and human nature being what it is, there was a measure of mistrust of all conservatives that came with this assessment. What I observed over time was that none of my conservative friends would seriously defend Bush v. Gore; a few might offer standard GOP talking points – especially the ones accusing Gore of “trying to steal the election” – that it was clear they’d just absorbed from propagandists, because none of them were prepared to defend that claim on a factual basis. But the default response eventually came down to simple dismissal: “Get over it!” None would acknowledge that there were perfectly good, perhaps even patriotic, reasons not to get over it. None would acknowledge that, were the shoe on the other foot, they too would be seriously outraged -- and I mean long-term outrage.

And so the feeling grew on my part that they neither were being honest nor being, at base, civil in its core sense, which entails at least a crude level of empathy. Maybe I was wrong to feel this way, I don't know; but I felt it. I tried not to let it show, but it was there. And it was a wedge in our friendships.

What seems to have really ripped things apart, though, was the aftermath of September 11. And this came down not so much to my feelings, but to theirs.

Some of it was me. There's no doubt my feelings about the legitimacy of George W. Bush's presidency affected my view of his behavior after the terrorist attacks. In fact, I was profoundly dismayed that someone as manifestly unfit for the office was occupying it at such a crucial moment in history. Now, had Bush gone about pursuing the war on terrorism seriously -- building multinational coalitions; recognizing the myriad faces of terrorism, and the limits of the military response; perhaps even recognizing when a criminal-justice response is more warranted; and uniting the nation around a genuine consensus -- well, then, I would have been forced to change my opinion of the man. I would have backed him as gladly as the Glenn Reynoldses and Hugh Hewitts continue urging us to do now, even now that Iraq has become a manifest disaster.

But Bush, of course, did not. Because he is so grotesquely shallow a leader, he has essentially allowed a cadre of genuine radicals -- specifically, the "neoconservative" ideologues from the Project for a New American Century, and their chief enabler, Vice President Dick Cheney -- to take control of both our foreign policy and the entire direction of the "war on terrorism." The result has been that we have spit in the face of our traditional allies, as well as the United Nations (and then had the temerity to come back to them demanding help when it all turned sour); only limited recognition that terrorism has a homegrown face as well; embarked on an invasion of another country with the September 11 attacks as a pretext, while such claims have proven to be completely groundless, and the invasion itself an incompetently executed catastrophe; and completely divided the nation by making out dissenters from the radical direction in which he has taken the nation as "unpatriotic."

In other words, Bush has done exactly the opposite of what needed to be done to reconcile those of us who doubted his legitimacy -- and at the time of his inauguration, this was some 40 percent of the nation, according to a poll in The Washington Post [1] -- to his presidency in these critical days.

It is in the last of these failures -- painting dissent as treason -- that the president, his administration and the accompanying pundits (or rather, the choir of sycophants) all have affected us all personally, and badly -- because that view has become the worldview of mainstream conservatives in all walks of life. It's manifested itself not just in nationally prominent scenarios like the attacks on the Dixie Chicks and other entertainment folk, but in other smaller and lesser-noticed ways, too, like the way conservative officers are reportedly driving liberal soldiers out of the military. The clear message in these cases: Dissent is disloyalty.

Even conservatives who have dared dissent have been drummed out of "the movement." The Stalinism inherent in this mindset was vividly on display, I thought, when longtime conservative Philip Gold of The Discovery Institute announced he was opposing [1] an attack on Iraq -- for reasons, I should note, that were almost identical to mine, and which I think have proven prescient -- and he was promptly dropped [1] from the Institute (which has, it must be noted, increasingly come under the influence of Christian Reconstructionist Howard Ahmanson in recent years, reflected in its ardent promotion of “intelligent design” theories). Gold has been forced to reach the same conclusion as I: that "conservatism has grown, for lack of a better word, malign."

Most of all, the prevalence of the "dissent is treason" meme has affected how ordinary people relate to each other, in profoundly negative ways.

I have heard all kinds of anecdotes about interpersonal alienation over Bush and his handling of the "war on terror." Some of these involve family members, others longtime friendships. One can only imagine what scenes will erupt from the coming Thanksgiving and holiday seasons too. For myself, it is not profound, but noticeable: invitations to traditional camping and fishing trips not issued; letters ignored; cold and brusque treatment when we do get together. A decided lack of communication and a clear sense of rejection.

And it's too plain why: I and my fellow "Saddam-loving" liberals are all traitors. They know, because Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter and everyone else out there has told them so. Indeed, these right-wing luminaries have been pounding it into their heads for years now, and it's reaching fruition.

I don't really blame my friends for this, though of course I deeply resent their willingness to adopt such beliefs. It is a very hurtful thing, and it may take years to recover, if at all. But I'm trying to be patient, believing that eventually we all will come around.

Mostly I blame the Limbaughs and the Coulters, as well as the so-called "intellectual conservatives" who have provided cover for the “treason” meme by, if nothing else, refusing to denounce it, and in many cases actively furthering it (see, e.g., Glenn Reynolds’ insistence that antiwar liberals are "objectively pro-Saddam").

But I no longer much trust in the moral strength of my conservative friends. Whereas once I believed that the basic decency of average, mainstream conservatives was more than an adequate bulwark against the possibility of right-wing fascism from ever manifesting itself, I have been forced to conclude that, when swept along by the combination of a movement and the fearmongering of public officials, they are as susceptible to doing the wrong thing as their ancestors were in 1942, when they shipped off 110,000 Japanese Americans to concentration camps.

Too many of them have been all too willing to aid and abet the worst features of conservative rule under the leadership of the Bush administration: the invasion and occupation of another nation under false pretenses; the assumption of near-dictatorial executive powers under the aegis of “wartime powers”; the willingness to engage in torture and wiretapping of citizens in defiance of the law, both national and international; the deliberate malfeasance in the handling of domestic policy, especially regarding the environment, education, immigration, and the economy. When confronted by these massive failures, they either concoct half-baked diversionary excuses or blame it on Bush’s incompetence. They never, ever, acknowledge their own complicity in Bush’s policies or his failures.

But most of all, they have turned a blind eye to the ugly reality of conservative-movement politics so far in this 21st century – namely, that it has become infected with a divisive worldview that divides America into Us and Them, and in doing so dehumanizes and demonizes anyone it deems Them. Anyone deemed Them is not only targeted for attack and suppression, but for their outright elimination.

Along the way, they have come to resemble, more than they ever like to admit, another kind of person I also got to know in Idaho: far-right extremists.

Next: Erasing the Lines