Benefit of the Doubt

There is not much that instantly infuriates me more than being told how I feel or what I think. Yet, when I look around at political discourse today, it astonishes me how common it is to ascribe emotions and motivations to the other in order to foster division:

• An article in Vox: "The coronavirus fight demands unity. But Republicans just want to own the libs."
• Candace Owens promoting her book "I finally wrote it. The book Democrats don’t want Minorities to read."
• A headline in http://NJ.com/ "Republicans don’t want you to vote"
• A headline in madison.com: "Liberals want to use virus to win"

I suspect you've seen them too.

This effort to ascribe evil motivations to the out group is part of what divides this country. And that division is killing us -- literally in the streets and figuratively in the see-saw of policies where one administration entirely reverses the last so that instead of moving forward we just zig-zag back and forth, going nowhere in midst of these culture wars.

Take policing for example -- it is probably sufficient the know that a significant portion of the US feels targeted by the police to understand that increasing accountability and transparency is a good thing, and building communal relations between police and the public is a good thing.

We can work together to make these things happen, whether or not we agree that police forces should be mode smaller or eliminated. The experiment of increasing trust will itself provide the answer to how small we can safely make the police force, and we have no need to get trapped in dogmatic arguments on the point.

Our words can help build common cause, or can lead us to Fortress America. I much prefer the former. To further that cause, I will continue to give my fellow citizens the benefit of the doubt, and when I can't be certain what their intent is, I will ask them.