One of the weirder evenings of my life was September 26, 2008, when I joined some friends to watch the first presidential debate between Barack Obama and John McCain. That doesn’t sound very weird. Getting together with friends for snacks, camaraderie, and watching an important political event sounds downright normal. The weirdness in this case arose from two facts of which I was not entirely aware before arriving at my host’s home. The first, which I’d had an inkling of but didn’t know for sure, is that I would be the only Democrat in a roomful of “enthusiastic” Republicans. The second took me completely by surprise: I was the only person in the house who went there for the purpose of listening to both candidates and drawing conclusions based on what I heard; you know, making an effort to be open minded. Silly me! I thought that’s why we were there.
I was about to find out I was in a minority of one. As soon as Barack Obama’s lips began to part, before any sound had emerged from his mouth, these people were shouting at the TV: “Idiot!!! That’s the stupidest, most ridiculous thing that’s ever been said in the history of the world!” (Or something that meant the same thing) The room was filled with scorn and derision in high decibels. When John McCain began to speak, they shouted their agreement, approval, and undying support. What their responses had in common is that they were based, in both cases, not on the words the man had just spoken but on their predetermined assessment of who the man was, and in this case on which one was the Republican and which one was the Democrat. The one person who formed a barrier between me and the TV screen was the loudest and most vocal of all, so my efforts to hear what the candidates were saying were mostly futile. My lame attempts at interjecting reason into a couple of their comments were not well received, so I just watched and looked forward to viewing the second debate in the lovely quietness of my own home.
Many times during the evening, I wanted to scream, “Can we all please just LIS-TEN?!” I didn’t. But that evening comes to mind often these days since it so perfectly exemplifies what passes for public conversation in our time. With very few exceptions, people today respond to the speaker, not to what the speaker says. The essential information is the speaker’s political party, where they fall on the conservative-liberal spectrum, their opinions and beliefs on key issues, possibly their religious affiliation, and their basic demographics. For the average listener, this information—or any portion of it—is enough to judge anything the speaker could possibly say, so there’s no need to actually hear it. This makes conversation pretty simple: I will pause while you say your words, and then I will give you the response which I already decided on as soon as I met you.
Think about it. It’s well known that millions of people in our country hate our current president. And for most people, this is not the usual disagreement over policy or disappointment that the candidate they voted for didn’t win or disapproval of the president’s general conduct. Those are some of the normal reasons for disliking a president, even strongly disliking; but the vitriol that has been spewed daily about President Obama is unprecedented. And those who do the spewing are undeterred by anything good that the president could possibly say. He has given moving tributes to fallen police officers, he has inspired us through many national tragedies, he has sung “Amazing Grace” at a televised funeral and given clear statement of his Christian faith, and the guy is a great comedian on happy occasions.
Yet nothing he says even pierces the thick shell of hatred surrounding his critics because they don’t hear a word of it. In every one of the examples I’ve listed, his haters have responded by calling him names (including the N word), declaring him a Muslim, labeling him a dismal failure (against all factual evidence), calling him the worst president ever, saying he was born in Kenya and is therefore unqualified to be president, and other things so vile I’ve chosen to dismiss them from my mind. How many people have really listened to what he has said, and how many don’t care what he says because they’ve already judged him?
One of the most baffling connections I’ve seen this campaign season, and that’s saying a lot, is the evangelical support of Donald Trump. An article that’s making the rounds this week is called “Why Voting for Donald Trump Is a Morally Good Choice.” The author is Wayne Grudem, an evangelical theologian, with a long list of credentials, including studies at Harvard University, Westminster Theological Seminary, and University of Cambridge; serving as a seminary professor of Christian ethics for 39 years; authoring a number of books, including a highly respected systematic theology; and acting as general editor of a study Bible. Impressive. But now he says this: “I do not think that voting for Donald Trump is a morally evil choice because there is nothing morally wrong with voting for a flawed candidate if you think he will do more good for the nation than his opponent. In fact, it is the morally right thing to do.” Hmmmm.
He continues:
He is egotistical, bombastic, and brash. He often lacks nuance in his statements. Sometimes he blurts out mistaken ideas (such as bombing the families of terrorists) that he later must abandon. He insults people. He can be vindictive when people attack him. He has been slow to disown and rebuke the wrongful words and actions of some angry fringe supporters. He has been married three times and claims to have been unfaithful in his marriages. These are certainly flaws, but I don’t think they are disqualifying flaws in this election.
Flaws? Not disqualifying flaws? So Professor Grudem, what on earth would you say IS a “disqualifying flaw”?
But wait, there’s more:
On the other hand, I think some of the accusations hurled against him are unjustified. His many years of business conduct show that he is not racist or anti-(legal) immigrant or anti-Semitic or misogynistic – I think these are unjust magnifications by a hostile press exaggerating some careless statements he has made.
Careless statements? Magnified? When he called women “fat pigs,” “dogs,” “slobs,” and “disgusting animals,” those were just careless statements? And they’d have been no big deal if those mean old reporters hadn’t gone and made a big fuss over them? A president, or someone running for the office, doesn’t have the luxury of making careless statements.
And to sum it all up, Grudem says:
Under President Obama, a liberal federal government has seized more and more control over our lives. But this can change. This year we have an unusual opportunity to defeat Hillary Clinton and the pro-abortion, pro-gender-confusion, anti-religious liberty, tax-and-spend, big government liberalism that she champions. I believe that defeating that kind of liberalism would be a morally right action. Therefore I feel the force of the words of James: “Whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin” (James 4:17).
You can read more of Professor Grudem’s “analysis” here: http://townhall.com/columnists/waynegrudem/2016/07/28/why-voting-for-donald-trump-is-a-morally-good-choice-n2199564
My point in this essay is that Barack Obama can sing “Amazing Grace” and get called a N*&&^^%, and Donald Trump can threaten to bomb the families of terrorists and insult numerous individuals and entire people groups and he just “lacks nuance” and is “flawed” but not fatally flawed. And those are the words of a leading evangelical whose life’s teaching has opposed everything Donald Trump stands for. Obviously Trump gets the pass here because he’s a Republican (the default party for evangelicals) and he’s not Hillary Clinton, not because his words are moral or make any sense. So Trump can go on saying whatever grinds his axes and proves his ignorance and still score the evangelical vote in November.
Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell cringe and go into damage control mode every time Trump opens his mouth yet refuse to withdraw their endorsements because he’s the Republican candidate and they’re Republicans, and that association counts more than what he says.
Even in personal conversations, the same truth applies. We paint whole categories with one brush stroke, and then we can’t hear what individuals say. Liberals are out to destroy the second amendment and confiscate everyone’s guns, they’re always playing the race card, they enable people to be lazy by handing out food stamps and welfare, they’re socialistic, they want to open our borders and jeopardize our national security, and they’re always wanting to enact policies God disapproves of. Conservatives are backward, racist, making war on women, God-flaunting, gun-toting, climate change-denying Neanderthals. And we too often respond to each other based solely on these stereotypes rather than on the actual words coming out of an individual’s mouth. I posted a joke awhile back on social media, and one of my conservative friends took it seriously. When I responded that it was meant to be humorous, my friend responded, “Lib humor.” Oh, so it might have been funny if a conservative said it, but today it’s not.
We can’t have rational, productive conversations about gun violence, abortion, public restrooms, LGBT concerns, or multiple other social issues because we’ve decided before the first word is spoken whether we agree or disagree with other speakers based on the category to which they belong. And even when we may agree with someone in another category, we find it difficult to cross lines because of group loyalty. Paul Ryan is a prime example in his love-hate relationship with the Republican presidential nominee. Voting against their own party’s nominee is hard for many people. People speak all the time about “both sides” of an issue. “All sides” would be more accurate because we all have individual opinions which don’t exactly match our category label, but the only way we’ll ever know that is to start listening to each other instead of assuming everyone in a particular category thinks exactly alike.
A counselor I once knew had a great exercise she used in couples counseling. The couple would take turns speaking and listening. The speaker would have to tell the listener something that person did which was offensive. Before the listener could respond to the charge, however, she or he had to first repeat what the speaker had said and continue repeating it whatever number of times it took for the speaker to say, “Yes, that’s exactly what I said.” The point was that you can’t respond to something if you didn’t hear it correctly; and hearing correctly requires active, attentive listening. If only we’d all start making that a habit in our daily conversations, we might find out a lot of people have important, interesting, intelligent things to say; and we might get somewhere in solving our country’s problems. It’s worth a try!