![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
amaebiHow can Trump supporters and conservative Republicans feel good about the policies and rhetoric that they're standing behind? I asked myself.
And I think I realized the answer then. They feel good about besting The Enemy and destroying everything The Enemy wants.
These are, after all, people whose paradigm for the past eight years has been Blockade.
I am hoping that as I and my liberal allies fight to prevent destruction, we spend at least as much time and energy on building. Not just building an army of liberal advocates and voters, and not just building to patch up what investment in humans and environment our current legislative and executive branches let drop. Building new things, building new perspectives, building possibility and capability and traction.
Because fighting as such seems to bring appalling habits of mind and heart. And no good way forward.
And I think I realized the answer then. They feel good about besting The Enemy and destroying everything The Enemy wants.
These are, after all, people whose paradigm for the past eight years has been Blockade.
I am hoping that as I and my liberal allies fight to prevent destruction, we spend at least as much time and energy on building. Not just building an army of liberal advocates and voters, and not just building to patch up what investment in humans and environment our current legislative and executive branches let drop. Building new things, building new perspectives, building possibility and capability and traction.
Because fighting as such seems to bring appalling habits of mind and heart. And no good way forward.
no subject
Date: 2017-01-22 04:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-01-22 03:37 pm (UTC)If, on the other hand, if it makes people cling to valuing compromise above the basics of what is being discussed-- a position people feel not only comfortable but self-righteous in, that requires no thought or research-- I don't think that will be helpful.
I saw President Obama work and work and work to cooperate with Republican legislators who would call only complete submission compromise.
And I am so much more interested in policy than I am in how policy is made. That is what affects people's present and future lives, and those of all the planet.