People of Good Will

I’m following the stories of Sarah Sanders being asked to leave a restaurant and Maxine Waters urging Trump’s opposition to confront the Administration with a certain amount of distance; it’s not as if I expect to have the opportunity to kick the president or his minions off of my front porch.  

My default mode is polite, but even the nicest people have boundaries and if I owned a restaurant I wouldn’t wish to serve Sarah Sanders, so I understand the impulse.  I abhor the cruelty that passes for political discourse in the current atmosphere.  At the same time, I recognize that it begins with Trump, who seems to do and say whatever he pleases and who enjoys the fallout from his thoughtless remarks.  The president is mean, small, and ignorant.  Silence in the face of his false claims and bombastic commentary brings us all to his level.  It’s one thing for us to be polite to one another; it’s another to serve as the president’s whipping boy.  I didn’t start this cruel discourse, but neither will I endure it quietly.

I think the opposition must therefore thread a narrow channel through the needle of political discourse: polite but cold; passionate but reasoned; objecting wherever and whenever we can.  I don’t think we all must agree; I believe that people of good will may disagree and still move forward together as a nation.  My problem is that I no longer believe that Trump and his supporters are people of good will.  And that is a terrifying prospect.