I am new to writing opinion pieces and hope you will bear with me as I hopefully improve with practice. As for my first effort, I would like to address the issue of political correctness or, as we good old Southern boys called it, good manners.
When I connect to my social networks to watch my daily dose of media, I am irritated by hateful and angry language spreading across the land. This ritual brings to mind a great opinion column from some years ago by the exceptional journalist E.J. Dionne, predicting the death of political correctness and an ensuing disaster. I recall the right-wing network Fox News making a great deal of fun of being politically correct and, as time went on, using increasingly hateful language to do so.
I must confess that I am as guilty as the next for having somewhat abandoned traditional etiquette in the time since November 2016. The Trump administration evoked such anger in me that I would let fly angry posts and tweets on social media almost daily. But even worse, my daily performance as a human began eroding as well – expressions of thanks and gratitude seemed irrelevant in the frantic pace of daily life. Empathy disappeared as the nation’s troubles and weaknesses became more apparent. And by the first year of the new Trump era, the Presidency no longer belonged to me.
By Trump’s second year in office, I realized the Republican Party did not simply represent opinions different from mine, but it was actually a threat to our nation’s democracy. Angry Republican members only affirmed this suspicion.
But year three was the turning point. Americans that supported Trump, the Republican party, or conservative representatives became my enemies. They were no longer American citizens but destroyers of my values and ideals for the future of the nation. These enemies were no longer welcome in my home. Anyone who held opinions different from my own was destroying our democracy.
But in year four, I became disgusted with myself. I spent most of the time angry. The news infuriated me to the point that I could not sleep. Social media only fed my dissatisfaction. I was so upset by our nation’s great divide that I finally decided I must try to reason with the other side. But every time I tried and presented what I thought was a reasonable argument, I was unfriended.
One day I decided that before I again wrote my typical big, responsible post on Facebook, I would try to take the politically correct approach with a Trump supporter and ask for their opinions rather than start with mine. It produced an amazing exchange.
A white male 20 years my junior from rural Wisconsin, an active party member like myself, sent me a carbon copy of my own reasonable argument. The post came from a man who loved his country and felt the other side was destroying it. We disagreed on the issues, but it was clear that he deeply cared about the economy, security, America’s place in the world, love, family, and religion. He presented my reasonable argument but from his perspective. He was me, and I was him. What both opinions lacked were civility and political correctness.
This exchange made me realize the value of civility and how it is one of the key foundations of democracy. Civility is crucial for a society made up of many opinions by establishing the common ground of our individual humanity. That alone deserves respect. But I will say that I have not mastered civility or political correctness, and I am going to have to further develop an anger management plan to communicate with those who have opinions different from my own.