We isolate ourselves from anyone who doesn’t think just the way we do

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Shouting isn't political debate
By John Krull, August 15, 2013

GREENSBURG, IND. — The man in the camouflage cap holding the American flag stands atop an overpass on I-74.

He’s draped a bed sheet upon which he’s handwritten the words “Impeach Traitor Obama” over the bridge’s guard rail. As cars on the freeway approach the bridge, he waves his arm and urges drivers to honk their horns in support of his message.

None do.

But he stands there, waving his arms at people he doesn’t even know, an angry man atop a bridge that’s surrounded by farms and fields.

I shake my head as I drive under the bridge and then see him in my rearview mirror, still waving his arms at the approaching cars. He’s jumping up and down, still angry.

I’ve been covering politics and politicians in one fashion or another for more than 30 years. And it seems like it’s been a very long time since nearly one half of the country or the other didn’t hate the guy in the White House.

I remember the 1990s, when the Clinton haters called the president of the United States a liar, a cheat, a coward and a degenerate. They tried to impeach him — and failed.

Then there were the Bush years, when the haters on the other side called the president of the United States a liar, a dry drunk, a tyrant, a fascist and a heartless fiend who didn’t care when children or poor people suffered. They called for his impeachment but didn’t get anywhere.

Now we’re in the Obama years, when the haters call the president of the United States a liar, a tyrant, a socialist and a traitor. There are calls for his impeachment, but they probably won’t go anywhere.

In each case, to many, many, many people who have opposed the president at any given time over the past two decades, the guy in the White House hasn’t been mistaken or misguided or wrong or even incompetent.

No, he’s evil. He’s a tyrant. Or he’s a traitor.

And he needs to be removed from office.

I wish I knew what produced the vitriol that flows through the veins of our body politic, but I don’t. At times, it seems to resemble a particularly large and nasty family quarrel — with all the bitterness that such disputes can arouse — but family quarrels generally settle down after a time. The people involved grow tired of the strife or they remember the bonds that tie them together and the screams become shouts, the shouts become mutterings and the mutterings become murmurs.

For at least the past two decades, we haven’t seemed to be able to get to that quieting point. We haven’t grown tired of the strife. And we sure seem to have a hard time remembering the bonds that unite us.

A lot of attention has been devoted to the balkanization of our media culture — of how, with the increased targeting of audiences based on ideological lines, we’ve created a series of echo chambers. We watch only the news programs that conform to our beliefs. And we strive never to encounter an idea with which we might disagree.

Preaching to the choir, my Southern Indiana grandfather used to call it.

There’s probably something to that, but the problem is deeper than that. Too often and in too many places — on the left, right and center — we just seem to want to isolate ourselves from anyone who doesn’t think just the way we do. We always want to talk, but most often we just don’t want to listen.

That’s why the guy on the overpass is such a perfect symbol for our troubled times. An angry man who uses the flag as a prop, he screams and waves his arms at people he doesn’t know and who can’t possibly hear him — and whom he can’t hear. Somehow, he thinks that’s meaningful.

In the rearview mirror, I watch him recede into the distance as I drive away.

He’s still holding the flag.

He’s still waving his arms.

And he’s still angry.
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