Disentangling Disagreements Layers Deep

A post on FB about Trump’s divisiveness showed up on my feed and resulted in this exchange.

[Individual 1] I personally will have to disagree with you. Obama did far more to divide this country than Trump has. Just my opinion. And at this point, about the only solution for our southern boarder is a wall. We have to stop people illegally coming into this country.

[Another person named Adam posted] Agreed. All six of them.

[me] It is difficult for me to understand claims that President Obama encouraged divisiveness, when his signature action was to build an approach to health care around a Republican idea (individual mandates). When Republicans refused to accept 'yes' for an answer, and then launched a campaign to label their own idea as 'socialist,' it seems to me that this choice to reject a reach across the aisle is the source of the divisiveness in that period. Then there is Garland. The signature action for the current president is to double down on divisiveness: defending white nationalists as good people on both sides, claiming we have arrested 4,000 terrorists at the southern border when it is (as Adam notes above) six, falsely claiming immigrants are more likely to be criminals, bragging about misogyny, and so much more.

[1] While the idea of national health Care is a wonderful idea, what was created by Obama was a failed system that did nothing but drive the price of health insurance through the roof and made it completely unaffordable to most people. It is fine to try to come up with a program like that, but forcing it out there when it is not ready/functional only hurt the situation. And socialist programs never worked any where in the world. Venezuela is a perfect example of that. And when I say he did far more to divide the country I was talking about racial division. As far as the southern boarder, it has to stop, enter the country legally or don't get in. No one has a problem with people of any country doing things the right way and Immigrating to the USA, but people entering this country illegally has to stop.

My first inclination was to post a short response like: Since most who become illegal arrive legally and then overstay their visas, how will a wall prevent that? But I did not hit send, as I felt sad for him. There are so many layers of misinformation embedded in his response. I am prepared to assume he is a good man, since it would be too easy to just dismiss him as a doofus. 

Instead, I am heart broken by what I see as the impact of Fox News, two years of daily presidential lying, and decades more of far-right billionaire funded campaigns to convince us that there is a litigation lottery, immigrants are criminals, criminals deserve no mercy, women are hysterical, the poor are lazy (particularly if they are not white) and more.

But I do want to unpack a bit.

[1] While the idea of national health Care is a wonderful idea, what was created by Obama was a failed system that did nothing but drive the price of health insurance through the roof and made it completely unaffordable to most people.

Millions continuing to enroll indicates it is not failed, despite the fact that Republicans have done all they could to destabilize and defund it (thus, increasing the cost of health insurance), including repealing the individual mandate (which was their idea to begin with).

It is fine to try to come up with a program like that, but forcing it out there when it is not ready/functional only hurt the situation.

Fair point, but the failure here is still more Congress refusing to accept their own idea. The president is not without some culpability here as well, for sure. But most large programs like this start out imperfect and improve with tweaks over time. Republicans have also blocks the tweaks at the federal and state level.

And socialist programs never worked any where in the world.

He misunderstood my point. There is no socialism here. Only a Democratic president making a Republican idea the centerpiece of his healthcare plan.

Venezuela is a perfect example of that.

Irrelevant since built on misunderstanding.

And when I say he did far more to divide the country I was talking about racial division.

Here I would like to sit down with this guy and watch President’s Obama’s speech on race, because I do not want to conclude that what he means here is that by being a black president, Obama was dividing the country on racial lines. Obama worked hard not to talk about race and when he did he worked harder to frame his comments in the least divisive way possible. As a black man he gains nothing by stoking racial animus.

As far as the southern boarder, it has to stop, enter the country legally or don't get in. No one has a problem with people of any country doing things the right way and Immigrating to the USA, but people entering this country illegally has to stop.

See above. The facts matter, because border security is important. As is the rule of law and treating people with respect. If we start with the facts, we can agree that we should work harder to stop illegal border crossings and we might even agree that a wall is one of the least effective tools for doing this. But when we start with a distorted Fox Noise view of the world, that there is angry hoards overwhelming our boarder crossings in an effort to rape and pillage and collect welfare, we start from a place that makes good policy making.

I feel like I am missing something here.

A few days later....The thread continues.

A New Voice 1 provides this longer comment:

“Obama did nothing divisive except be black and kill kids with drones. And if being black is what makes a divisive person to you, well, by golly, you're a bigot.

Instead of a wall, let's reexamine how people enter our nation. Yes, of course illegal immigration is a problem. But I would also be super happy and am eager for these people to come here in a legal fashion. So let's make that process easier so we can control it.

People will dig under, go around, and cut through a wall.

We could use that money to invest in school systems, bridges/roads, helping homeless veterans, or heck, we could invest it into research and troubleshooting of our legal immigration system.

There are other, more practical solutions.

Do not get caught up in the fear, racism, and reactionary politics. There are many other solutions.

New Voice 2 agrees with the original poster (who had praised the dissenter, calling him a friend for his civility) and adds “As far as your ‘friend’ goes, he doesn't have the balls to say what exactly President Obama DID to divide this county, except being born with brown skin.”

The Dissenter Friend Responds: “New York City, Ferguson, Mo
Baltimore, Md
Dallas, Tx
Not only did he do nothing to stop it, he threw gasoline on the fire and took the side of things who were breaking the law. I don't care at all about skin color. An asshole is an asshole no matter what color their skin is. That is enough said.”

New Voice 2: “But WHAT DID HE DO? He certainly didn't throw gasoline on a fire. WHAT DID OBAMA DO? Can't you be specific?”

Dissenter Friend: “He backed the bad guy, we done now.”

Thread Starter: “What bad guy? You're still not being specific. "Bad" is quite subjective.”

New Voice 2: “Yes, which bad guy? Another totally thoughtless bullshit lie, the ones you hear from Republicans every single day.”

New Voice 1: “Oof, the racism is strong with this one.”

This does not seem like a productive exchange, although clearly it could have gone even more badly and efforts by the threat starter to moderate likely prevented that.

But where did this go wrong?

One possibility is, building on the conclusion in the thread itself, that the dissenter friend is some combination of misinformed and prejudiced. We cannot rule this out, but is this the only or even the best interpretation of the ‘root’ of the problem here?

A second possibility is that the call for specifics was smart and appropriate, but once the dissenter responded fairly weakly, resorting to name calling and all caps is when this took a nose dive.

This interpretation must recognize that the dissenter might be a troll who will gleefully never return to the thread, and that would make the troll most culpable. But it is also possible that some active listening and willingness to engage could have resulted in helping the dissenter by noting ‘okay, there is disagreement about cause and blame in Ferguson, but it still seems difficult to conclude that the president having the DOJ investigate is driving the divisiveness here, right?’

Maybe this is me acting too much like a teacher, helping a student better articulate an argument that I do not agree with. It would certainly risk sounding condescending, so it would need to be stated with care (and with very few words, so as not to sound like the lecture being developed here!), but it seems like an effort to ‘be the change,’ that matters.

A troll would ignore it. A dissenter bathed in Fox News narratives would likely ignore it as well. But this approach would also make it less likely that the dissenter (or others reading the thread) might conclude that ‘the left’ resorts to name-calling in place of argumentation. Just a thought.

I do like the ‘oof’ comment though, using language that sounds like Star Wars.