Reverse Polarization

The middle is a sandbar in a rip tide

Another day, another conversation with someone who, like me, sits in the middle of the political spectrum watching extremists on either side waiting for us to say the wrong thing.

Before getting back to that, one of the wrongest things I’ve endured for the past two months is thumb-sucking, navel-gazing commentary on why the Democrats lost the presidential election. I was under the impression that the crew of political professionals assembled to elect Biden didn’t adjust quickly enough to elect Harris, that it wasn’t the Democrats who lost so much as it was the nominee the Democrats chose, and that maybe the Republican won instead of the Democrat losing.

One piece that started out focused on the numbers pointed out a number, Democratic turnout, that changed enough to let Trump win. Essentially, voters who turned out to vote against Trump four years ago didn’t show up in November, possibly because political memories fade quickly. Unfortunately, by the end of the piece, the writer was saying Democrats didn’t turn out to vote because Biden did not embrace the BLM movement enough.

I don’t think that’s what it was. But I do think BLM was a more important issue for the writer than for the deciding voter. The deciding voter is the one who thinks, “Stuff’s wrong, vote against the president,” or “Stuff’s not bad, no need to vote.”

Everybody else is polarized. They knew in 2022 who they’d vote for in 2024.

Herein, some non-polarized views.

Greta is just a teenager; that doesn’t mean global warming is good.

Body dysmorphia is a serious medical issue with complex comorbidities. A 13-year-old deciding to use plural pronouns is not the same thing. Using traditional binary pronouns as the default is not transphobia. It’s grammar.

“Go woke, go broke” is a senseless expression, designed to enable and encourage pointless insensitivity in people who can make life decisions based on simplistic slogans.

“Defund the police” is a foolish slogan, satisfying anti-cop factions but alienating people who might agree with “Let cops be cops.” Repairing policing in America won’t be accomplished by either slogan.

The Oct. 7 attacks were an unconscionable horror. Firing rockets from southern Lebanon into northern Israel is terrorism. Disrupting shipping in the Red Sea is nihilism. Iran would have less money and attention for funding terrorists if the U.S. had not destroyed Iraq 20 years ago.

Netanyahu should have resigned on Oct. 8, but stayed in office because it’s how he stays out of jail.

Batteries use rare metals that pollute the areas where they’re mined. That doesn’t mean global warming is good.

The American system of medical payments is complex to the point of absurdity. That doesn’t make it OK to shoot people.

It’s not OK to shoot people. That doesn’t mean an insurance CEO deserves ten million a year.

Decisions about medical needs should be made by doctors, not by algorithms and clerks. Clerks should not be called claims specialists. Doctors scamming Medicare make it necessary to impose regulations that border on absurdity. A small minority of doctors scam Medicare.

The horror in Gaza was made immeasurably worse by Netanyahu’s need to hold together a right-wing coalition.

I can almost divide remaining readers into three groups, with the fourth group being those who quit reading at the first thing that pissed them off. There are those who agree with little of what I’ve written, those who agree with much of what I’ve written, and those who kinda sorta agree with some of it but wish I hadn’t written it that way.

But none of what’s here is strictly right or wrong if you’re not polarized enough. Those looking for the poles become like one of comedian Archie Campbell’s “That’s good; no, that’s bad” routines on Hee-Haw: funny on a music and sketch show, damnably frustrating in any kind of serious discourse.

“You may be right.”

“No, you may be wrong.”

When the conversation goes beyond the memes, the slogans, the simplifications, and the schoolyard taunts, it often winds up with two people who agree that we don’t share the same views but that we have lost the middle. The middle is where compromises are made. The middle is where problems are solved. The middle is where we’re not afraid to talk to one another.