A Tale of Two Pictures

           You need a thick skin if you want to be a politician in America.  Everything about you, your family and your friends is fair game.  American politics is a contact sport, and if you can’t live with being cursed at, insulted or mocked, you best find something else to do with your life.  This is as it should be, and, unfortunately it is also nothing new.

            But this image goes too far.  I’ve seen two versions of it.  The first version I found on Facebook.  One of my conservative friends found it and posted it on her timeline.  The second 

version I saw uses the same caption but a different photo.

            I don’t know who took the picture or who wrote the copy.  It could have been some disgruntled Republican troll, a disgruntled Bernie troll (yes, they exist), or, perhaps more worrisome, a professional operating a political campaign or a super PAC.

            I’m not offended because of any connection with or affinity for Hillary Clinton.  What bothers me about it is something deeper than who I might want people to vote for in the Democratic primaries.

            To understand what troubles me about the image, compare it to this similar photo that I don’t believe crosses the line.

            The second photo is arguing that Hillary Clinton is a Nazi.  Whoever posted this probably doesn’t know what a Nazi is and apparently can’t distinguish a regime that rounded up millions of people and converted them into piles of ash from a presidential candidate who is determined to fight for a portfolio of policies with which the person who created this picture disagrees.  The original poster probably just thought he or she was being funny in a snarky kind of way.

            While I think the second photo is in bad taste and draws incorrect historical parallels, I’m not offended by it.  Americans have been insulting politicians and warning about their potential for tyranny for as long as there’s been an America.  It’s up to us as voters to decide whether arguments like this one tries to make are worth entertaining.  American politics just wouldn’t be American politics without a loud, boisterous and spirited debate regarding who ought to be entrusted with state power.

            The difference between the first photo and the second one is that in the second one, the attack is directed at Hillary Clinton.  In the first one, the attack is directed at Clinton’s supporters.

            This is a crucial distinction.   Clinton’s supporters and her opponents can have a spirited debate about whether Clinton is a Nazi just aching to take on Adolph Hitler’s mantle.  No one on one side of the debate may be persuaded that the arguments being advanced on the other side of the debate have any merit, and all of the debaters may leave the forum exactly where they were when they entered it.  But at least the debate could take place at all.

            For the first photo though, there cannot be a debate.  The copy makes it clear that any discussion about Clinton is pointless because her supporters are “idiots.”  By definition, anything an “idiot” says is nonsense and not entitled to serious or civil consideration.  Nobody gets to discuss Clinton’s ideas because the focus is on her supporters.

            It may fair comment to say that people who think that Clinton is a Nazi may also think that her supporters are nuts for wanting her to become the next president. But the proposition the second photo makes doesn’t immediately shut down discussion; their argument is focused on what Clinton could or would do as president.  It still allows for the possibility that Clinton’s supporters are reasonable people who could react positively to a good argument.  The first photo does not.

            And this is part of what is ruining American politics.  For some segments of our population, political campaigns are not about ideas or policies.  Ideas and policies are beside the point.  What’s important to that segment of the population is which side wins and can lord it over the losers.

            In this view of the world, we are not “fellow Americans.”  We are tribe members or fraternity brothers who value solidarity with and the success of our group over the welfare of all of the tribes or fraternities with whom we share this country.  Part of the strategy used toward this end is to divide the world up into separate camps where it is easy to distinguish the smart, positive reasonable “us” from the stupid, negative and unreasonable “them.”

            You simply can’t run a country this way.  We can’t have a democracy if we are determined to see people who disagree with us as adversaries to be disregarded, disrespected and defeated.  Democracy presupposes a certain degree of good sportsmanship in which all sides compete ferociously, but, once the competition ends, we shake hands and accept the result until the next election.

            Hillary Clinton’s supporters are not idiots.  And neither, by the way is my friend, a Trump supporter, who had the good grace to take the photo off of her timeline when she saw that it upset me.  It’s that good grace American politics sorely needs.