“Canadians are all pressed up against the plate glass window like this,” she says making a splurgy face.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/sep/12/margaret-atwood-if-youre-going-to-speak-truth-to-power-make-sure-its-the-truth
I am one of those Canadians being described by Margaret Atwood. From this “splurgy” vantage point, here are my thoughts; not on person Trump, but on his followers and the divide between Republicans and Democrats. I explore but a sliver of the divide but one that is informed by my life work.
It is a very good thing that I am intrigued when two people disagree. Otherwise, I would be a terrible relationship counsellor.
I grew up in a family with more than its share of disagreements. Fortunately, they were out-in-the-open disagreements. My mother and father disagreed about how they slept. There would be a double bed period, followed by a twin bed period and then it would happen all over again. My live-in grandfather and the local minister disagreed over whether or not to play cards on Sunday. The minister lost and my grandfather continued to play cards and not go to church, but they never quit arguing about it. My aunt and my mother disagreed over sliced vs unsliced bread. My mother paid the penny more for sliced and my aunt was sure that children were starving all over the world for want of that penny. The minister solved this one once every three months by denying them quarterly communion if they did not make up. My father was a die-hard Liberal and my mother was not so sure he was right. They often split the vote. My mother fed the boarders steak and my father pushed for hamburger. I grew up in a swirl of well-articulated disagreements.
Recently, I watched a CNN interviewer in conversation with a Trump supporter in Black Lives Matter Plaza who was there to state that the election had been stolen. I was struck by her welcoming smile and her infectious enthusiasm. She appeared entirely likeable. She shared her abiding loyalty and her conviction was admirable. No fact could shake it.
Do you worry about this: 74 000,000 on one side and 80,000,000 on the other? I do. This is a whopper of a troubled family relationship. Like many Canadians, I have friends and family south of the border who are part of one side or the other. As well this divides threatens the globe.
Tyler Combie in November 16, 2020 issue of the New Yorker illustrates this divide as a bomb.
Throughout my life as a marriage and family therapist, I have always wondered about the macro divisions. As I child I spent a summer consumed by novels about the American Civil War. I went to graduate school in the USA, when you were either for the war in Vietnam or against it. There are Christians in this world who believe that every word of the Bible is the direct word of God and there are other Christians who understand the Bible as a collection of human witnesses writing their accounts of what they saw and heard. These sides have a hard time, even after centuries, of acknowledging that they are both Christians. Concerned about the Palestinians, I once spent a week living in an Orthodox Jewish community in Jerusalem to see if I could understand the other side. Twelve years ago, I spent a week in upstate New York with the cream of the crop of American intellectuals, who were seriously debating whether evolution should be taught in American schools. I once had grandiose dreams of being called in to be the therapist to Prince Charles and Princess Diana. Why do people disagree so vehemently?
As a therapist I try to listen intently to both sides. However, long ago I gave up trying to be neutral. In the female/male divide, women have generally done more work to achieve a balance between work life, with its focus on individuality, and home life, with its focus on connectivity. For centuries women have been socialized to commit to the “we.” Quite often, but not always, men have more growing to do in learning how to connect authentically. I have had to learn to listen well to the male journey. It is not an easy time for relationships to bridge differences and thrive. I bear witness to the fact that it is, often but not always, possible.
What about this great divide that we are facing as a world? Here goes with what I am thinking as I apply my therapeutic knowledge to the highly explosive and all-consuming macro division of our times.
The 74,00,000 have the characteristic of not liking experts and the 80,000,000 swear by them. For the 74,000,000, these experts are part of a gigantic and poisonous elite. By contrast, I like experts. When I think about why, it is because, for the most part, they have not hurt me. It is also because I did well in school and easily pleased the experts. Not born to it, I joined the elite through education. I am with the 80 million.
What if the 74,000,000 have been hurt by experts? What if school was a terrible experience for them and they hated it because they did not learn the way others did, for many very good reasons? What if the American dream has not worked so well for them? What if good things like jobs and living wages have been promised and not delivered? What if some of them are white males that have been displaced by the feminist revolution and are angry? Is it possible for me, as a representative of the other side, to truly empathise?
I think about a time in my life when I really trusted “the experts” and I was betrayed by them. I was profoundly humiliated. Is there a worse condition than such humiliation? What if I had had few corrective experiences to this but rather multiple reinforcing experiences? What if I met thousands of people who had my same experience and felt as I did? What if a leader came along and assured me that he would take away this degradation? What if such a leader promised me that they would rid the earth of such devious manipulative gaslighting experts? What if he promised “to drain the swamp” of all of them? I would be tempted.
The divide is further characterised by a battle to be right. Each side thinks they are right. In this scenario there are winners and losers. Assigning blame is operative. Every relationship therapist encounters this divide. I think a mentor of mine, Terry Real has real wisdom when he said, “you cannot be right and in relationship.” Often this is true.
Therapy with such a couple is about exploring, at the depth, the reasons for their sense of rightness and validating that for that person, they make sense. This is not agreement but empathy. Most of the time processing in this manner, it is possible to attain compassion. Some of the time, one side, when deeply understood and valued, sees the wisdom of the side of the other and moves to that position. Sometimes both make moves toward the other.
As a young woman, the father of our children said to me that I was not to work outside the home. I had a graduate degree and was equipped to hold down highly professional work. This did not matter. It would be handy if he died which was the prevalent thinking of the time. It was a tenet of patriarchy that still holds power in much of the world. Only for the first time has the USA elected Kamela Harris, as Vice President Elect. I did not agree with him and longed to be a mother who worked. We were on opposite sides. He had centuries of patriarchy to back him up. I was part of a fledging group of feminists. We were frozen in a very serious divide and we had only just married!
From this perspective, I think about the 74,000,000 and the 80,000,000 as being equally paralyzed.
The 74,000,000 for the most part align with Donald Trump and form his base. For the 80,000,000, this is hard to understand but we must in order to be in relationship. Some people have the gift of charisma, and Trump has it and plays to it. The golden hair, the long tie, the endless humourous name-calling patter, the promises and the demand for loyalty. He certainly puts on a larger-than-life performance. He fosters blame of the other and promises the end of their oppression in a manner that captures and liberates his followers. This is not fact based, but the hyperbolic lying appeals. He has rock star appeal in a rock star venue.
If you are highly rational, what the 74,000,000 do will not make sense to you but it cannot be dismissed. Maybe once when you were young you gave yourself to Tea for the Tillerman and knew every word of every song on rock star, Cat Steven’s iconic album. Maybe you have purchased the current release of Tea for the Tillerman 2 just because. Remembering giving yourself wholeheartedly to a person who moved you will help you understand and empathise with the hearts of the 74,000,000. Maybe you felt this at a Bruce Springsteen concert. Reflecting on this could be a starting place.
Spiritual people have always understood what it is to be apprehended by something bigger than they are. There is an old hymn that begins, “make me a captive Lord and then I shall be free.” It expresses the exhilaration of giving up self to another. “Imprison me in thine arms and strong shall be my stand.” We speak in hushed sounds about being captivated. In a similar way, the 74,000,000 are and may continue to be captivated by the power and charisma of President Donald Trump.
When a couple comes to me they are often on the edge of divorce. Usually, they have tried very hard to repair the arguments. They come, and often one is more reluctant than the other. They come suspicious of therapy and the experts. They have a belief that if the relationship doesn’t work easily it was not meant to be. They step across the threshold into my office, or at least they used to. Now they press the Zoom button. At this moment, important things happen.
They open themselves, if only a crack, to a third party. They agree to tell me in their own words what is happening. I have to listen compassionately to both sides in order to help them find their shared view of reality. Maybe they loved each other once. Maybe they share the same citizenship!
They also agree upon a space: my office or the Zoom screen. It is my job to make this space safe. They have not felt safe with each other for a long time. In this space civility is encouraged and expected. This step over the threshold into my care brings palpable relief to both of them.
I think the 74,000,000 and the 80.000,000 need a therapist and they need a safe space. In my opinion, the safe space and the therapist is the government. Face pressed to the glass, it is my idea that in the case of the USA, this is Congress. They have a big and sacred job to do, as I do with the disagreeing couple in front of me. They must be a safe container for what, in this case, may be no more and no less than a shared citizenship and since they voted, a shared commitment to democracy.
Will enough of members of Congress step up and do it? Many voices reflect the sentiment of Larry Diamond, a political scientist at Stanford’s Hoover institute when he states, “The Republican politicians who know better in the House and the Senate and the governorships have to speak up…putting the preservation of democracy and civility over the preservation of their own political careers”. Surely, this is a moment of possibility.
In therapy it makes a big difference I have found if the couple is surrounded and supported by family and friends. Way back in my life, the patriarch of my husband’s family stepped up and said to his son. “I made a mistake when I forbid your mother from following her career dreams. I was wrong and you can see how she suffered. Don’t make the same mistake I did.” This intervention made a huge difference in the life of my family. It allowed us both to identify the ways in which patriarchy had hurt us both. We moved. Healing happened.
Based on my experience as a relationship therapist, I suggest that right now, ordinary people can step up, support and pressure their elected officials to move for connection, repair and life and not for division, war and death. Right now, individuals in the 74,000,000 have family and friends in the 80,000,000 and vice versa. This creates moments of opportunity for listening without judgment. Here are the questions.
Does what holds us together matter?
Could I listen compassionately to what your position means to you and why you hold it?
What do each of us have to put on the table to make a bridge?
Is it okay to fail and try again?
Often in my office there are nasty explosions where one side moves for power and control. It is a fraught path to reconciliation. It is not always successful. The divorce rate is very high.
I notice in the next generation, those children of divorce choose their partner carefully and work diligently to find bridges over disagreement. I just heard an interview in which Michael Moore said that he thought it might take a generation for healing to happen. He might be right. It might take multiple generations, but that is not a reason to give up but rather to start the process now. As Obama is fond of saying, “we work for a more perfect union.”
From my perspective, this is the work of courageous men and women on both sides, held and guided by mature Congress. Please, my dear neighbours to the south, demand at least this.
As I said in the beginning, I, as a layperson, am exploring but a sliver of this divide and the directions forward taking shape in my mind. Wiser and more powerful minds than mine are addressing this issue. I want to lift up the ideas people like us and I welcome comments and thoughts from your perspective. In a democracy there is room for us all to have a say.