Too often in our political discourse, there’s little respect for the other.
Our moral duty as we go forward
A mong the most shameful events of the midterm election season this year has been the rumor-mongering and conspiracy-theorizing about what lurid things could have led to the attack on the husband of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. A man was attacked in his home, in an attack that allegedly was aimed at his wife. Instead of praying for Paul Pelosi and condemning the violence, some Republican politicians made jokes about, for example, sending Nancy home in the election to spend more time with Paul. Democrats, of course, made matters worse by blaming the violence on the right. How about we all turn down the temperature and see one another as human beings who have differences?
On the left, someone will charge that we on the right are wrong on a whole host of fundamentals and have to get with the times. On the right, someone will counter that the Left poses an existential threat to America. We need to have some significant substantive debates that affect lives, including those of the most vulnerable. And we have to insist on listening to one another, or we will never convince anyone of anything.
As a Christian, Alan Sears has convictions. He founded Alliance Defending Freedom, one of the leaders in litigation and education on religious freedom. The Thursday before Election Day, while being honored by the Religious Freedom Institute, he had December 1981 on his mind.
In the ballroom of the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C., he showed us all a photo of Ronald Reagan walking in the rain with Romek and Wanda Spasowski. Romek, the Polish ambassador to the U.S., had just become the highest-ranking Communist official to defect to the West. Immediately, his Polish citizenship was revoked, and he was condemned to death. President Reagan met with them and felt for them — they were courageous, but scared. As they walked to the car waiting to take them to their new home, the president held an umbrella over them both and comforted Wanda with his arm around her.
These two were, just hours before, our enemies in a real war. And yet, here they were, simply fellow human beings. As Sears put it: “These are not the actions of a politician, or even of a world leader. These are the actions of a kind man — a friend.” He added: “I can’t help thinking that, for all the assurances of protection this couple had received, this was the moment they knew they were really safe.” Perhaps, also, the “gentle gesture was the moment they knew they’d made the right decision.” Sears described the scene — and Reagan’s approach to it — as grace.
It was also a reminder that one of the ways the Cold War was won was through relationship. In a press conference in Moscow, Reagan even gave Mikhail Gorbachev the credit.
In sharing some principles on which he founded ADF, principles by which he tries to live his life, Sears said, “We don’t have ‘enemies,’ we have ‘opponents.’” The enemy is something much more powerful and sinister than an individual person, or even a political party, that we disagree with. He described best practices: “No matter the intensity, the acrimony, or even the cruelty of that opposition, we make a deliberate choice to not demonize or despise individuals. We don’t attack their reputation or besmirch their character.” He emphasized, instead, the importance of grace of the kind Reagan extended that day.
Joking about the attack on Paul Pelosi is not grace. Nor is ignoring attacks on pro-life clinics and churches. If we truly have concern for one another — even for our opponents — people may see we’re weighing in or leading in politics and policies for the right reasons. Of course, one gets the impression that very many today are not.
Sears told the story of one of his attorneys at ADF being in a California courtroom on an important case when the opposing lawyer started coughing. The ADF lawyer did the decent thing and got her water. She stopped coughing but then couldn’t find her place. He then showed her where she was in her notes. Sears says that the opposing lawyer wrote to him about it years later. “That’s the way it’s supposed to work,” Sears emphasized. Small acts of kindness that demonstrate that, “however sharp our differences,” we still have “kindness and compassion.” Our opponents — “even those trying to destroy us” — should be able to see that they can “depend on our word” and “trust in our character.”
Too often in our political discourse, there’s little respect for the other. Donald Trump doesn’t pretend to have any. Joe Biden talks about unity by deriding half the population. (His Philadelphia speech in which he called Americans who oppose abortion part of the problem comes to mind.) Mercifully, the country is bigger than the two of them. (And bigger than Fetterman vs. Oz or whoever your home-state choices are.) But too many, especially at election times, don’t act like it is.
There are people on both sides of the aisle who have given up on pluralism. But as another speaker at a dinner at the same place a week before put it, grace doesn’t work without our freely choosing it. Before the end of the year, instead of adding to the stories we’ve heard of families and friendships breaking apart because of politics, reach out to someone with whom you disagree on big things. Choose grace and go along for the ride of restoring our civic lives for a healthier politics. One person at a time.
And watch the humanity of your opponents on social media. If you can’t, delete the apps from your phone. Choose grace. The choice just might catch on. And transform how we interact with one another — even in politics.
Editor’s note: Lopez is a media fellow at the Religious Freedom Institute.
Editor’s note: This column has been edited since posting to reflect the location of the Mayflower Hotel.
This column is based on one available through Andrews McMeel Universal’s Newspaper Enterprise Association.