Hate the Other Team

I love this tweet from Zuby because it’s clear there’s a divide in our country presently and it seems much of what transpires gets used as fodder feeding the hate the other team mentality. As someone who sits largely in the center it’s easy to see hate from both sides towards the others particularly those farther from the center in the outer edges of the spectrum despite the reality that we are all citizens in this together. I find the media insidious in their presentation of half truths rushed to press in service of site clicks from the public. What’s worse, our failure as citizens to withhold judgment and wait for data to unfold compounds the situation, foments hate the other team thinking, yet it happens in response to shoddy content passed off as journalism that may or may not be accurate and all too often clearly demonstrating a disregard for the impact of half truths. When the Blake shooting happened last month, this was painfully obvious if you observed headlines from the first half day which clearly characterized the incident in the worst way possibly yet inaccurately. It’s not surprising riots followed, considering the incendiary nature of the falsehoods; thus, the content bolstered the us vs them divide while amping up the hate the other team rhetoric.

In response to posting Zuby’s tweet, a dear friend asked what I consider to be a potent question. My Facebook app crashed before I posted the response I was composing and was unfortunately deleted; I took it as a sign I should write it in a blog post instead. He asked:

I can’t say with accuracy if the ship has sailed regarding finding a way to come together, but I do sit here with optimism and faith that there are things we can do as individual citizens to help the situation.

Presently, I’m not sure there’s too much difference between the democrats and republicans overall. Both parties are littered with leaders who have conflicts of interest, seem to value their side winning over serving the people, clearly demonstrate hatred in their communication to the citizen of this country, and when it comes to policies, seemingly have people willing to continually stoke the military industrial complex even after the fiasco that was (is, really) our presence in Afghanistan for just about the whole millennium thus far. Our pattern of bouncing back and forth between the two parties seems to effectively produce more laws, not less, and in my opinion not necessarily to our benefit; consider the Patriot Act as a solid example. The government has admitted to spying on us and now, as we watch the response to covid and proposals of immunity passes, it seems likely those in power — regardless of their affiliation — will continue to do what they have always done: consolidate power. What that really means is a reduction in liberty for us plebs. Meanwhile, we sit there and hate the other team rather than unite as citizens against bloated, inefficient, generally ineffectual, nanny-state government that continues to grow.

Thus, it’s not clear from both the showdown between Biden and Trump as well as the leadership choices in lesser positions of power that the politicians and parties who helped create the situation we are in are equipped to change the narrative from hate the other team and instead bring us together. Fear not — I do have some thoughts on what we the people can do to mitigate the situation:

• Try something new! If we always do what we’ve always done we’ll continue to get what we’ve always gotten. Which is to say if we continue to operate as if the Democrats and Republicans are our only choice — opposite sides of the same coin whose ideals require we hate the other team in order to sanctify our affiliation with our side — we will continue to choose from their paltry menu when the reality is we can make other choices. It seemed clear when Trump was elected we the people wanted something different which is how he was able to garner the win and equally so accounts for Bernie Sander’s popularity both in 2016 and 2020. However, people seem to embrace the either/or, red team/blue team, hate the other guy paradigm or opt out of voting rather than choosing alternate candidate, often justifying it with “the lesser of two evils argument” which I believe speaks to our collective resignation and submission. Call me crazy which by some standards I’m sure must be true given what I’m about to suggest: how about choosing to endorse a candidate with our votes who truly represents what we want rather than someone who we still believe to be evil, even if it they represent the lesser evil? Don’t get me wrong — if you endorse the candidate for whom you’re voting, it makes sense to me to vote for them whether or not you hate the other team. If, however, you’re casting your ballot for team red or blue yet you don’t support their policies, I have to ask, what stops you from choosing a candidate more aligned with your values? Some have suggested the third party options in the Libertarian and Green parties don’t represent them either, which is a legitimate objection. If, however, you’re unaware of these candidates, I encourage you to consider investigating. Perhaps you’ll find someone with whom you resonate more fully. Either way, the worst thing resulting from this exploration is you choose to vote for the lesser of two evils. Of course, the best thing that happens could be you voting for a candidate with whom you feel alignment rather than voting for a lesser evil because you hate the other team.
• Old players, new way of playing. If the third party candidates aren’t something you’re willing to consider, please take a look at ArticlesOfUnity.org. The idea is two candidates run as President and Vice President, one who is a left leaning centrist and one who is a right leaning centrist. Then, once elected, they switch roles each year, going back and forth which would forge an alliance and encourage cooperation between the parties to create solutions. While I don’t think it’s a realistic goal for 2020, I do think it has merit for 2024, especially if people start considering it now and spread the word.
• Would you run? If you’re not finding candidates in whom you want to invest, perhaps you could consider running for office yourself and provide the alternative people may be seeking. It may seem insurmountable to go from pleb to president, but leadership isn’t simply at the federal level and investing in local government can make relatively more significant changes in the places in which we are most invested while offering each of us an opportunity to create solutions we seek to implement.
• Dialectics and education. Ultimately, I think large scale societal shifts result from our collective individual changes, not from government telling us what to do. If you want to create more connection, you can create opportunities to engage in discourse that helps expand awareness and education beyond the narratives being spoon fed to us by media. We may not share the same hierarchy of values, but if we create opportunities to understand each other’s perspective, perhaps we can find winning solutions that value the desires of all parties and from that place of understanding, focus on how can we work together versus hate the other team, thus allowing us to build the bridges we need.
• Live and let live. If each of us can make the individual choice to engage with neutrality (or perhaps kindness where inspired!) toward fellow citizens rather than assumptions which often and easily generate hostility, this might create an opening in the broader sense wherein citizens can live their own lives the way they want without engaging with those who don’t share their values. Ultimately, if none of us are infringing on other’s persons and property, even if we don’t have the same vision and values, we can live and let live, thus allowing us find ease in the places where we are not similar rather than choosing contentious positions that pull us apart.
• Be the change you want to see.  When Trump got elected, the fake news narrative became prominent along with the negativity toward him. Hate the other guy was at the heart of #NotMyPresident and 4 years later, despite Trump being the president to all of us, the phrase is still bandied about. At the time, I found myself uncomfortable with the growing negativity around me and was keenly aware that there was nothing I personally could do to change the way people were feeling, counter their narrative, or eliminate the fake news. What I could do was choose to focus my time, energy, and attention on creating more content on the internet that represented the things I find inspiring and beautiful. I thought that by adding more art and educational material, I was diluting the relative weight of other things, even if I did so in the tiniest of ways. Over time, I made a commitment to create and publish 1000 new pieces a year in service of my values. Sure, it doesn’t change what is out there that I don’t like but it does offer alternative content and at the end of the day, I know I did what I could to bring more of what I want into the world.
• Contribute in alighnment with your values. Along the lines of creating more content to drown out the noise we don’t like, it seems to me the most powerful thing we can do is to choose our actions in a way that would inspire us to be the best version of outselves. For my part, this includes self inquiry, understanding, and creating our path through:
  • Clarity of our values and their hierarchy
  • Integrity of our action in alignment with our values hierarchy
  • Endless education and personal development through an unwavering growth mindset
  • Willingness to reevaluate our positions and accept where we may have shifted positions
  • Conscious capitalism through conscious consuming and boycotting
  • Compassion toward our selves and those around us in both the micro and macro sense
  • Continually refining, practicing, and integrating these ideologies even when we have a bad day