Yesterday, Friday, I received fifty-five emails asking for money to support national and state candidates for election (not including emails from the Daily Kos). Today looks to be on track for an even greater number. I’m a retired English professor, and my pension is based on an income that started at $10,000 in 1970. Like most old people, I live on a fixed income that doesn’t have much leeway for things beyond shelter, food, and medicine. Still, I give what I can to candidates and causes I really believe in. If I were send even small donations in response to every request (and a lot of the requests are for amounts that are not small), I couldn’t pay my monthly bills.
Even though we criticize the Other Party for raking in the big bucks from wealthy donors and pride ourselves on relying on small donations from grassroots supporters, these incessant emails create the strong impression that Democrats are out to buy the election, just like the Other Party. Yes, I know all the arguments about ads and phone calls and media time – but those are just tiny bandages on a badly broken election system. Election reform – including reasonable limits on time and spending –must become a priority.
But the sheer number of requests for cash doesn’t bother me nearly as much as the rhetoric of those requests. Subject lines include: We’re SCREWED; TERRIBLE news; DRASTICALLY behind; Is the Senate slipping away?; uh oh ...; Democrats BLINDSIDED; NOBODY saw this coming; Chaos is upon us; The sky is falling (no, wait, that last one's from another story, and so is the one before it). Even when the news is good, the rhetoric is alarming. At a time when progressive candidates are doing well in the polls and masses of money seem to have been raised, the emails trade on fear and anxiety. I don’t like what that says about our candidates or about our election process.
The rhetoric of fear is clearly not confined to Donald Trump and his followers. Those people may be the ones most likely to use name-calling, lies about other candidates, and physical intimidation, but are we really all that much better? And what is this reliance on anxiety and fear doing to our national perceptions of government and elected officials? Are we teaching people that fear and distrust are the proper attitudes for all those engaged in government?
For much of my life, I’ve believed that good government is based on reason, cooperation, and compromise. I’ve believed that elected officials of both parties have the good of the country at heart (most of the time), even when they disagree. Yes, I know what the Republicans in the House and the Senate have done to violate all of these principles, but I still think that ordinary Republicans are generally good people, even if mistaken about certain issues. But their party leadership has clearly abandoned the underlying principles of good government. It worries me that my own party uses rhetoric that suggests it’s about to do the same.
I have a lot of respect for the candidates I’ve supported most strongly, including Hillary Clinton. They have kept a positive outlook, talking about what they believe in rather than about what they oppose. They speak of mutual support rather than of hatred and bias. And yet, their campaign people appeal to fear and anxiety in their requests for money. There’s a discontinuity here that bothers me.
When I look closely at the rhetoric of these emails and the underlying assumptions that rhetoric implies, I see an attitude of opposition, a we – they dichotomy that is not a good omen for the future. If our goal is to help build a better country and contribute to a better world for all people, then surely our focus needs to be on peace, justice, and inclusion for everyone, not just those who agree with us. It’s natural to feel anger and resentment at some of the things that have happened and are still happening, but those emotions must not define who we are.
It’s my hope that President Clinton and a progressive majority in Congress will be able to keep focused on cooperation and inclusion. I hope that their rhetoric will stress their positive goals and avoid any note of triumph, victory, fear, distrust, or anxiety. Can that happen? Can we all take that attitude?