A few months ago, I attended a two-day training on the book Crucial Conversations. It was a helpful look at the way we can approach difficult discussions in a way that’s constructive for all involved. In the book, they talk about “The Fool’s Choice.” Basically, it’s a situation where you convince yourself there are only two options, and neither of them are really any good at all. For example, you might have to choose between telling the truth and hurting someone, or keeping silent to avoid damaging the relationship (even if the discussion is something that really needs to take place). And so you end up making a choice between those two opposites, justifying it to yourself by saying, “There was no other way.”
I feel like that’s where many good people are mired politically these days. I see terrible, horrible things happening across the country, and I’m appalled that somehow the United States of America has come to this. Weren’t we the country where we were proud of our freedoms? Proud of our ability to express opinions? To go where we wanted, when we wanted, for whatever reason we had? And yet I see video after video, read story after story, of ICE coming to snatch people off the street or at their workplaces. Men in masks driving up and herding people into unmarked cars. Say what you want about academic freedom or the government taking an active stake in business or the nuances of redistricting wars, but I’d like to think the vast majority of us can agree that the events in those videos of ICE are . . . bad. Wrong.
And yet somehow we’re told that it’s the only way. That either we have rampant illegal immigration in America, or we’ve got ICE on the streets arresting middle-aged mothers.
Nonsense.
Somehow, our politics has gotten to the point where the two major parties (Democrats and Republicans) want us to believe it’s all either/or. That there’s no middle ground. And that if you’re a Republican, then you have to support your party against those evil Democrats, no matter what. It’s like the worst part of a vicious sports rivalry, played out on a national and global stage.
I’ve been involved in my share of sports rivalries. I’m a Yankee fan living in Red Sox Nation, and I’m a BYU fan where half of my extended family are avid Ute fans. There are fans who will insist their team never makes a mistake on the field. Where admitting anything good about the “other side” would be tantamount to betraying who they are as a fan. Where at times, it seems they define themselves more on who they actively dislike than who they want to root for. And when that’s sports, it’s irritating, but whatever. It’s just a game.
The fate of our country is not a game, and no one should need to feel like speaking out against something their party is doing is somehow going to ruin our future. And if/when Republicans do speak up about not liking something the current administration is doing, they shouldn’t be drowned out with comments like, “You voted for this. This is your fault.” Because all that does is reinforce the Fool’s Choice. The concept that all of this was either/or.
There’s always middle ground. We should be encouraging that space to flourish, not trying to turn it into Flanders Fields.