Man Lacks Spine, Ethicist Feigns Ignorance of Danger
'Hateful' and 'mistaken' are wholly different concepts, and only one is fixable.
This question and answer are both long and rambling, so I chopped ‘em up with ellipses. Follow the link for the full text.
from The Ethicist (New York Times), November 2024
My mother [is] a two-time Trump voter […]. I strongly oppose Trump, as do my wife and her family […].
With the result of the 2024 election, my wife and her family are directing their understandable fury at my mother. […] But my mother is […] an invaluable caregiver to our children. She’s pleasant and kind in daily life and moved far from her home primarily for us and her grandkids. […]
I’m torn. My wife and her family expect me to brook no compromise and to speak out on an issue that feels existential to them (as it does to me), but because I know that her vote here doesn’t make a difference, I have trouble feeling motivated to admonish her for her past and possibly present support of Trump. […]
I appreciate the sacrifices my mother has made to be near our family and our children, and our kids love their grandma. […] And my mother expects me to intervene and speak up for her […] She sees her vote as a ‘‘personal choice’’ and doesn’t seem to believe that she should be criticized for it.
Ethically, is it wrong for me to hold my tongue or to try to negotiate the peace even though I agree with the substance of my wife’s family’s position? […] — Name Withheld
From the Ethicist:
This is a sad but not unusual story. […] Since at least 2000, the research suggests, people’s positive feelings about their own [political] party have stayed roughly constant; the big drop, which has intensified since 2016, is in positive feelings toward the other side. […] And the trend isn’t just found in this country: Partyism swamps other sources of intergroup hostility in Britain, Belgium and Spain, too.
One way in which these attitudes can be rationalized is by insisting that members of the other party are making the wrong choices because they are wicked or stupid or both. [But…] You might have gotten something wrong — about how the world works, about what they will do, about what is good. […]
At the same time, your mother is, as you say, mistaken to speak of her vote as if it were nobody else’s business. For these purposes, the causal consequences of how she voted, in one state or another, is a distraction. […] Treating your mother with respect means being honest about your views.
But it doesn’t mean cudgeling her with them. Once you’ve said your piece and listened to what she has to say in her defense, repeating the same arguments over and over would be the act of a bully. […] If the rest of your family wants to go on doing that, you should tell them that they’re being unkind and unhelpful. […]
Today, family gatherings routinely unite Catholics and Protestants, Jews and gentiles, Baptists and Episcopalians, Blacks and whites and Latinos and Asians; not so long ago, they could unite Democrats and Republicans. In perfect harmony? Far from it. But it helps to remember people are more than the sum of their political views — and that intolerance has a habit of breeding intolerance.
Original advice rating: C-
Original Adviser: Kwame Anthony Appiah aka The Ethicist
Meta-Advice:
This week’s letter is from the NYT’s Ethicist column, manned by the deeply humorless NYU philosophy professor Kwame Anthony Appiah. I’m addressing myself first to him rather than the Letter Writer.
Dear Mr. Ethicist,
I’m not a big fan of your advice work, but you fuck up here in some fun new ways. You start by describing what is apparently called “Partyism”:
“Since at least 2000, the research suggests, people’s positive feelings about their own [political] party have stayed roughly constant; the big drop, which has intensified since 2016, is in positive feelings toward the other side.”
You choose not to discuss what has changed since 2000 or 2016. Let’s review.
The Aughts: A Big Mess & A Cleanup
We kicked off the 21st century with 9/11, the invasion of Iraq, Abu Ghraib, Hurricane Katrina, Facebook & Twitter, and a lot of Wall Street bullshit. It was a great time to be a war hawk, finance bro, or venture capitalist.
But in 2007, greed crashed the economy and someone had to fix it. In this context, President Obama was able to do a lot of progressive stuff:
2009: Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, designed to help address the wage gap between men and women, becomes law; Sonia Sotomayor appointed to Supreme Court; Obama awarded Nobel Peace Prize; ban restricting people with HIV/AIDS from entering the U.S. lifted
2010: Elena Kagan appointed to Supreme Court; Affordable Health Care Act passes (and ensures that health insurance companies must provide birth control without copays)1; Dodd–Frank becomes law; Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is repealed
2012: DACA becomes law
2014: Minimum wage raised from $7.25 to $10.10 for workers on federal contracts; Obama signs an executive order to protect the rights of LGBT employees in the workforce with no exemption for religious beliefs
2016: U.S. signs Paris Climate Agreement
But change is scary, especially to those who feel their power (and/or wealth) is being questioned or threatened. And so…
The Darkest Timeline
Trump entered politics in 2011 by claiming that President Obama wasn’t an American citizen. And while Obama and Congress were passing (relatively) progressive legislation, the rest of the civil rights news isn’t pretty:
2013: 17-year-old Trayvon Martin is killed in Florida by George Zimmerman, who is acquitted of the murder, and the Black Lives Matter movement begins
2014: Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, Eric Garner, and 30 other unarmed Black men are killed by police. Protests and unrest result, especially in Ferguson, MO. These killings are still happening.
2015: Hate crimes reported to FBI begin rising and have risen every year since
January 2017: We all know what changed3
This was the start of our current backlash against progress. And this backlash, its propaganda, its racism and misogyny, its brazen willingness to do violence and lie and cheat and steal, is a new level of Bad Shit in American politics. This is the Bad Shit that the Letter Writer is indirectly reckoning with—not just arbitrary “Partyism,” sir.
Now that we’ve corrected the egregious lack of context, we can address our Letter Writer.
Dear Spineless Son,
Not all Trump voters are MAGA people. If your mom were wearing a QAnon Shaman hat to Thanksgiving, I would not have any advice for you except to start interviewing babysitters. But it sounds like she’s just someone who somehow thinks it was a good idea to vote for Trump.
Most of us reading this believe that people who voted for Trump are hateful (about one or more relevant topics), mistaken (about one or more relevant facts), or both. But hateful and mistaken are very different things, and only one is fixable. Luckily, it sounds like your mother is merely mistaken.
You would prefer to just never speak to your mother about her political ideas, and your wife’s family would like to yell at her about them. These are both bad ideas. There is a path between these extremes, and as her son, you are the person responsible for taking it. (You may also have to keep your wife’s family from yelling at her in order to do this productively.)
You have to ask her questions about why she supports Trump, and listen to the answers without getting visibly upset or explaining her errors right away. You will have to do this one-on-one. The Ethicist is right that her vote is not a “personal” matter; her vote and vocal support of Trump is a move to infringe on your, and your children’s, rights—whether she realizes this or not. Therefore, she owes it to you to explain it. You can tell her this. I can promise it will not outweigh her desire to see her grandchildren.
Once you find out what she is wrong about, you can see if you think this wrongness can be corrected. You will have to be sneaky about it. Nobody wants to admit they’re wrong; except in the worst of circumstances, they have to feel like it was their idea to change their mind. But start with asking questions and see how far you can get. She might be your mother and free babysitter, but she’s also an adult who should be held responsible for her choices.4
File Under: Do the Thing, Talk (Listen) to Them
The ACA will likely be repealed during Trump’s second term.
Also likely to be undone by the Supreme Court under Trump.
Hint: “grab ‘em by the pussy” became a thing the President of the U.S. has said on tape.
My husband thinks I should explain more here about the consequences of said responsibility, but in my experience this listening/normalizing honesty phase takes months or years and you can’t rush it.
An important point that so many people need to hear. It is our responsibility to talk and listen to our relatives when they vote against our rights and survival.