We’ve all seen the numbers, the horrendous “favorability” and “likability.” News commentators keep telling us that this year we have the choice between the two most loathed presidential candidates in U.S. electoral history, or at least in the history of polls that measure things like that. As The Daily Show’s Trevor Noah put it, “What’s now clear is that both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are running against the only person who they could possibly beat.” It was one of those jokes where you start out laughing but end up crying.
This article isn’t about the candidates. There won’t be any policy rundown to compare the pros and cons of one versus the other. We’ve read enough of those, and none of them changed anyone’s mind. This is about us. It’s about our friends, of both the digital and flesh-and-bone varieties. It’s about the stories we’ve seen on social media, what we’ve read in newspapers and magazines, what we’ve heard at parties and bars and at work and in grocery stores. It’s about the looks we’ve seen on people’s faces, the sadness, frustration, and anger in their eyes. It’s about the arguments we’ve had. The fights.
As far as the candidates go, I’ll say only this. I sincerely believe that millions of people — in America and around the world — will suffer under either a Trump or Clinton presidency. That could be said of any U.S. presidential election, but the stakes do seem higher this time. Alright, I lied. I’ll say one more thing about the candidates. They’ve brought out the worst in us, all of us. It’s easy to point fingers at one side or the other, but we’ve all behaved poorly.
If I had to guess, I’d say that dozens of my friends have unfollowed me on Facebook since the primary began (some felt compelled to confess). A few have unfriended me, but not as many as I expected. I’ll be honest and admit that it makes me a little sad. What makes me even sadder is that I have done the same to them. Well, I’ve unfollowed people but not unfriended them. I’d never unfollowed people before though, and each time I do so now I end up immediately feeling gross about it. There’s a small sense of betrayal, a sense that I betrayed a friend and myself. There’s also the realization that I’m subconsciously acknowledging I’m too thin-skinned to read opposing views. To avoid throwing these little temper tantrums and experiencing the subsequent sting of shame, I’ve cut way back on the amount of time I spend on social media, especially Facebook.
I’ve made it a personal policy not to negatively comment on anyone else’s posts, no matter how intensely they trigger a knee-jerk impulse to explain, in detail, exactly why I think they are wrong about Candidate X in regards to Policy Z. Do not trespass on someone else’s timeline. That’s a good general rule. Someone’s timeline is like their digital front porch. They should be able to speak freely without being harassed about their views. That doesn’t mean we can’t engage in serious but courteous conversation. It means if we don’t like what another person has to say and can’t keep things civil, we should move on down the road, scroll on down the feed.
Besides, out of the hundreds of Facebook “debates” we’ve all witnessed and taken part in, how many have resulted in someone actually changing their mind? I’m not talking about the ones that end with one person saying something along the lines of, “Yeah, I guess I can see your point…” We all know that’s just a gentle way of saying “Dear lord we have beaten this to death ad nauseum and I don’t want to argue about it anymore.”
It’s startling to witness how easily an innocuous comment on a post or message thread can quickly escalate the discussion into the most hostile name calling and personal attacks. We like to think that our online lives are are separate from our “real” lives. In some ways they are. In other ways, not so much. Our social media personae are a part of who we are, we carry them with us when we log off and go out into the bright, sunny world. I’m thinking now of a friend who posted about getting into a minor accident in a parking lot.
Everything was as cordial as could be expected until the women who hit my friend’s car saw a certain presidential candidate’s bumper sticker on it. The women then turned to her husband and said, “Now I ain’t sorry.” Things were unpleasant from then on. That story reminds me of the the tow truck driver in North Carolina who left a woman stranded on the side of the road for the same reason, because of a candidate’s bumper sticker on her car. And that story reminds me of reading about an actor who played one of my favorite roles in one of my favorite TV shows allegedly punching a woman after they got into an argument over a candidate in a hotel bar. Stories like these have become all too common, as have the videos of how protesters are treated at rallies for candidates from both sides. It doesn’t matter if the anger starts online or on the streets. More likely than not, the two feed off of each other. The point is that we are angry, and we are acting like it.
Facebook’s echo chamber spills into real life
Throughout this election cycle I’ve said and done several dumb things, ranging from the naive to the boorish. However, creating a second Facebook account, with a made up name and fake pictures and all, is probably the most out of character thing I’ve done. That account is where I often go to rant about politics now, so that I can avoid the judgement of real life my friends, and avoid judging them. Oddly enough, I have more “friends” in my fake account now than I do on my real one, despite the latter being much older (hmmmmm…). I don’t think I’ve ever actually met a single one of the friends from my fake account, but we talk all the time.
That account is the veritable political echo chamber everyone ridicules. It’s a few thousand like-minded people throwing around their like-minded political opinion, however casual or informed, for everyone else to like and share and comment on. There is little dissent. It’s a happy place in many regards, a safe space in the most counterproductive ways. But even there I can’t escape the ugliness that has nagged me more and more as this election cycle wears on. I see the name calling, the use of language that no one would dare speak in public, and the utter disrespect and disregard for differing views. In that enclosed digital space, most of the anger and vitriol is directed at those outside the circle. No one is arguing among themselves, not usually anyway. Instead they are all projecting their angst at an outward enemy. It is still there though. I see it there on the screen. I see it in my “friends.” I see it in myself.
And I should not have said “They are all.” I should have said “we are all.”
I always try to stick to policy when discussing politics. Maybe everybody says that. There’s simply no need to discuss a candidate’s personal history or appearance or mannerisms. There’s definitely no need to mention those traits in the person you’re talking to. None of that matters. Everything we need to know is right there in black and white, in votes yay or nay. So I stick to policy. That doesn’t mean I haven’t been an asshole.
I don’t recall resorting to name calling at any point in this cycle, not to anyone directly anyway. But I’ve been snarky and condescending and dismissive more times that I’d like to admit. I’ve told people they don’t know what they’re talking about. I’ve told people they don’t care about anything but winning. I’ve been on the receiving end of those sentiments my fair share as well. If there is one thing I hope to personally take away from this election, it’s to never again forget that I’d always rather be on the receiving end of rudeness. I can come to terms with someone being rude to me much easier than I can come to terms with me being rude to someone else. Always. I know that now with certainty.
These heated exchanges, the momentary lapses of judgement, the failures to give the other the benefit of the doubt now and then, all of these things can be forgiven. They always are. We do so every four years. We lose our wits a little and act peevish for a few months. Then November comes and goes and we all get back to normal. Everyone is friends again. We joke about who we voted for in 2000.
Is this election bringing out the darkness in us?
Something feels different this year though. When I run into people who’ve unfriended me or who I’ve had shitty exchanges with online, I can tell they are uncomfortable around me. They don’t want to talk to me. It’s not just that they’re mildly embarrassed or that they’re anxious I’m going to want to discuss politics (I rarely do that in public). It’s deeper than that. It’s that something has changed. They feel differently about me. In some regards, they’ve lost respect for me because of my views. I know that’s what they’re thinking because I’m thinking the same thing of them. I’m looking at them the same way. Arguments are easy to get over. Losing respect for someone is another story.
I always liked to think that I’m a forgiving person, that I’m accepting of others and appreciate that their differing views are every bit as valid as mine. It turns out I might have been giving myself too much credit. Either this election has made me colder, harsher, pettier, more judgmental, more arrogant, and more set in my ways, or it has tested me and exposed that I always possessed those traits in greater quantities than I was capable of admitting. Realizing you’re not as good of a person as you thought you were, perhaps not by a long shot, is depressing. It can also motivate you to be better. I hope.
As I said, I believe millions of people will suffer no matter who is elected. I’ve felt that way, in regards to our two major parties, for every election since I started voting 20 years ago. America is a violent nation no matter who is running the show. We’ve apparently come to terms with that as a people. I’ll be relatively unaffected no matter who the 45th president is, so will most of my friends and family. A majority of the people who suffer, the ones who will suffer the most, live outside the of the country that will be causing their suffering. Americans tend to move on, for the most part, and leave those other souls in our wake. We always have.
But something broke inside of us as a nation this time. There’s a sense of betrayal that will be hard to brush aside. We are not united. I know this from watching the Democratic and Republican national conventions on TV. The nation is split in half, and then those halves are split again amongst themselves. The anger, the heartbreak, the betrayal is real. Longtime friends are no longer friends because of this election. This is not a suggestion that American is on the brink of social collapse, but it’s not necessarily a denial of that either. We’ll move on for the most part. Those of us who were friends but experienced a rift will still be polite to each other. We might even have a beer together now and then, but it won’t be the same. We’re still going to be disappointed in each other. We’re still going to feel betrayed. We’re still going to look at each other, our friends, with skeptical eyes. We’re going to doubt them. We’re going to question their values. Right now, it feels like we’ll always remember what happened in 2016, who said what, who voted for who.
Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe after November we’ll all sigh in relief, laugh about it and share a round of hugs, and then carry on with our lives. But maybe not. And maybe that’s a good thing.
Photo: Thomas Luebke/Creative Commons