Trump’s reelection forces us to confront absurdity and embrace tolerance
Guest Commentary by The Rev. Todd Eklof | Unitiarian Universalist Church of Spokane
For me, the most memorable scene in the original “Planet of the Apes” movie is when stranded astronaut George Taylor (played brilliantly by Charlton Heston) regains his voice and begins shouting, “It’s a mad house! A mad house!” Taylor is stunned by the absurdity of a world where apes rule and humans are dumb.
In light of the recent reelection of Donald Trump, I can relate. I imagine many of those who voted against him can. For us, it feels like the world is upside down. We consider the president-elect to be the most obviously unfit person to ever run for the position, let alone to win it, twice!
When the world feels so upside down, the first thing a thinking person ought to do is ask, “Am I the one who’s mad?” After all, how can so many of my fellow Americans see Trump so differently? What am I missing? You may not find the answers to these questions, but being willing to seriously entertain them is a good sign that you’re not crazy. I wish more people these days had the intellectual integrity and fortitude to question their own beliefs.
Living with absurdity
In this case, we’ve all heard Trump’s mad claims of election fraud, higher crime rates, that democrats are aborting babies after they’re born, that Kamala Harris was given the answers before their debate and that Haitian immigrants are eating our pets.
Additionally, his rhetoric is often incoherent and inconsistent, not to mention extreme, obscene and untruthful. He says things that are profoundly racist, sexist and misogynistic, and, as we saw on Jan. 6, 2020, sometimes incendiary. There’s also his personal history of bad financial dealings, bad business dealings, alleged abuse of women and other crimes, including a felony conviction.
Most recently, he even spoke about using the Armed Forces to go after those American’s he calls “radical left lunatics.” There are so many other equally alarming redlines that give those of us now doubting ourselves plenty of sound reasons for considering Trump’s reelection a kind of madness.
Living in tolerance
Nevertheless, we have to accept our new political reality because accepting reality is what it means to be sane. The stoic philosopher Epictetus one said, “There are some things in our power and there as some things not in our power.”
This is the beginning of stoic wisdom, focusing our energies where we can make a difference, not worrying about the things we cannot change. Stoic wisdom also reminds us to remain true to our values and principles no matter what circumstances we’re in, whatever the consequences to our own lives.
For Zeno, who founded Stoicism around 300 B.C., these “virtues” include wisdom, courage, justice and moderation. These are still great values, but our post-Enlightenment society is based more upon universal human dignity, individual freedom, reason and tolerance. The most practical of these, in my opinion, is tolerance. If we tolerate one another, the rest will follow. True, we can do much better than tolerance. Tolerance is a low bar. Yet, it is all that is necessary for us to live respectfully and peacefully together.
Living without fear
We don’t have to like each other or agree with each other. We only have to “live and live,” which means guaranteeing that those we don’t agree or are different than us, including politically different, have the same rights and freedoms that we want for ourselves. If, in the process, we learn from each other and even come to love one another, all the better. But no pressure.
Such tolerance is our nature, as proven by the Universal Golden Rule found in most human societies throughout time — Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Or, conversely, Don’t do to others what you would not want done to yourself. I also love the tales of angelic encounters in the Hebrew and Christian scriptures because they often begin with the angels saying, “Be not afraid” or “Fear not.”
In these dark days when authoritarians are gaining power around the world by stoking our fears against each other, we should appeal to the better angels of human nature by reminding one another that forcing everyone to think alike has never worked.
The only thing that ever has is learning to accept one another, to live and let live, to do unto others as you would have them do unto you. I think such tolerance is a starting place that most of us can agree upon, no matter our politics. Let us begin.
I like your desire to be tolerant. That is the best step forward.
As I listen to the echo chambers of both sides, I am always amazed at how ignorant both sides are of what the other side believes, choosing to label with the most derogatory terms those that they are ignorant of, rather than sit and talk, trying to understand.
I first heard Rush Limbaugh in the 80’s and 90’s when I drove through central California. He was a comedian using parody and hyperbole as his shtick. It was very effective at unhinging those on the left who took him seriously; so much so that he went nationally and the right gave him a megaphone. Then the left started promoting comedians with the same shtick to characterize the right. Broadcast media now does the same. Because of its effectiveness to paint the opposition as evil, both parties have run with it and made it their main offense.
So rather than running on ideals that benefit all, we have divided each other with identity politics, pointing out not what unites us but what divides us.