Evan X. Merz

One of the things I dislike most is black and white thinking: when a person breaks down a situation and decides that there are only two sides, the good and the bad. The right and the wrong. That's almost never a good analysis of... anything.

One of the signs of black and white thinking is name calling, yet name calling seems to be the main form of political discourse these days.

We call people names when we want to turn them into the "other". When we want people to see them as less than human. When we want to justify the way we treat them.

Name calling generally has the intended effect. It pushes people away and separates them from the group in power (the group who is inventing the names). It is drawing a line in the sand and saying that anyone who might fit that name is on the other side (the "bad" side).

What's tragic in today's politics is that people are often unaware that they are even participating in this. I see so many well educated and well intentioned people spouting these weird vocabularies that only make sense to the other people in the increasingly small in-group.

Obviously we hear this from the president the most. His word salad is so dense it's almost impenetrable. To him, his enemies are woke antifa leftist communist snowflakes. I think his leadership is a significant part of the problem.

But we see this equally from the groups in power on the left. The left continues to wonder why men aren't voting for Democrats, while continuing to invent new ways to denigrate men. Today the boogey man is the incel tech bro performative misogynist manosphere. While I generally consider myself a liberal, I think some of the talking heads on the left are nearly as difficult to understand as the president.

In both cases using this rhetoric is shameful, rude, and just plain lazy analysis.

Because most people are good people no matter which "side" they're on. Most people are not racists or misogynists or communists or terrorists. They are good people who disagree with a lot of the rhetoric even from their own side. They have complex feelings toward the government and toward the politics of today.

They love their community, and their country, and they want to do the right thing for the people who live there.

But name calling isn't just lazy analysis, it also accomplishes the opposite of what people usually want to do. When we use words like this, words that turn people into the "other", we push them away. Instead of bringing them alongside us, we are making it more difficult for them to see our side.

On social media this happens every day. People spend 5 minutes venting their rage then move on to whatever is next. They live on anger. In my head I call them "social media rage goblins", but I recognize that making up a name for them is somewhat ironic.

On traditional media I wonder how these people continue to find work.

What I would like to see from leaders and commenters is a refusal to engage with the most fringe beliefs like those spouted on the internet by anonymous people on the far left or far right. Instead of centering the people with the worst beliefs, let's talk to the rational people on the other side. We should lead by showing that we know that fringe beliefs are not the beliefs of most regular people.

Maybe this post is just an old fashioned call for civility. Maybe it's as antiquated and obsolete as the president's tax and tariff policies.

But I still want everyone to recognize the fundamental humanity in their political opponents. Generosity shown to someone you disagree with is the highest human virtue.