Across the Great Divide; An Exploration of The Others

I enjoy sharing political commentary, information, insights, concerns, occasional satire and witticisms with Facebook pals. I get a reinforcing charge from the upraised thumbs and the “atta boys” and “go get ‘ems” that follow a common sense observation or barb that finds the mark.

At the same time, I understand there are many who ignore our exchanges entirely either due to disinterest in politics or disagreement with what are largely Democratic sympathies.

Overall, however, we are members of the same choir preaching to one another where rarely is heard a discouraging word and the skies are not cloudy most days.

Out there on the range and in the fields, though, there are “the others,” I can’t refer to them as the "loyal opposition" as that implies a degree of comity I have yet to find.

These include single issue voters like gun advocates, religious evangelists, anti-abortion advocates. It includes Trump devotees who espouse notions centered around Hillary Clinton as the devil incarnate and that she, President Obama and whoever else is the target of the moment should be locked up, hung or shot, including, most recently, Khizr Kahn, who Trump acolyte Roger Stone has branded “(a) Muslim Brotherhood agent helping Hillary.”)

My abiding interest is in trying to discern the true nature of our national character. Are we the people we proclaim ourselves to be: a nation committed to justice and equality for all or some, or none but the "elites"? 

Is the constant deluge of gun violence, vicious rhetoric and character assassination throughout the land a product of something permanently stamped in our collective psyche and incapable of eradication or is there a possibility of rapprochement and reconciliation? 

What is most disconcerting about those on the far right is the constant undertone of violence; the references to the coming apocalypse, the threats of murder directed both at our nation’s leaders and those among us with whom they disagree and how readily they resort to such language when confronted with opposing viewpoints.

What surprises me are their numbers. While most of us share our views with perhaps 10-20 friends and neighbors salute our sentiments, the folks who provide forums for the far right have hundreds of thousands of followers who rise to the bait at the slightest provocation.

It seems to me that the most effective means of ascertaining the root causes of such profound disaffection is to meet on their turf, if not their terms, and attempt to learn more about who they are, how they perceive the world, and whether there is any possibility of reconciliation and compromise.

So, I’m taking a very brief respite from our own comforting exchanges to head over there to try to figure out what makes it all tick and what it is that is tearing us apart as a nation.

 To date, I’ve spent time exploring the Facebook posts of self-proclaimed journalists such as Dean James, III, and “professional truth teller” Sean Brown, each of whom have amassed 400,000* approving followers, gun advocate Eden Rose, a/k/a The Lil Red Menace and the 300,000 who follow her and several more.

(Update: By election day, those sites each had more than two million followers.) 

I’ve invited myself into their dialogues with my customary presumptions, sharing my usual point of view and trying to ingratiate myself as graciously as possible into the clan.

It appears I struck a nerve because I received a number of immediate responses, including an invitation for an introduction to the kill capacity of a Baretta gun which, I have been assured, far surpasses that of any Magnum I can name. Well, since I can’t name any Magnum other than Dirty Harry’s I guess I’m due for an education. 

I’ve also been told I need a throat punch, which shouldn’t impede my typing ability and that I’m a “half sandwich” which just left me hungry for more.

Beyond being a worthy anthropological study, I see this as an opportunity to maybe turn a vote or two and I look to the three upraised thumbs garnered in hostile territory as a signs of hope, promise and progress. So, I’m off to explore the dark underbelly of our national experiment.

As time permits, I hope to share dispatches from the mind field.

Until then adieu. I’ll dig y’all on the other side of the Great Divide. 

HL August 2, 2016