People are in pain . . . deep pain. And as progressives, I feel like our approach is to ask people to be rational. If we don’t start understanding that our response needs to reach people at a visceral, mythic level, we sound so ivory tower. We sound like all we are trying to show is that we are right without speaking to their pain. We don’t sound emotionally intelligent.
We pretend that emotional intelligence is about being rational all the time, being calm all the time, and never being enraged. And that is so wrong. Emotional intelligence is the proper emotional response for the moment. And one of the best ways to show emotional intelligence is to affirm the real pain and anger that is present.
When I did canvassing for Democratic candidates in Billings, Montana, there were several families who were ready to kick me out the door. I could tell. Not unlike how congregations listen to my sermons, I sounded like Charlie Brown’s teacher to them (Blah, blah, blahhhhhh, blahhh).
Then I would ask them if there was anybody in their family struggling with mental health issues. At least half of those situations were met with a full stop . . . Now they wanted the literature. Now they wanted to know about the candidate I was supporting.
People are in pain. If we are just arranging the chairs on the Titanic by electing Democratic candidates, a softer, more genteel disaster, we still go down with the iceberg. And we will do so trying to quiet people who might help direct anger to the organizations, cabals, systems and structures that are the engineers of injustice. The pain and anger needs to be acknowledged and even applauded.
The Koch brothers and Rupert Murdoch don’t have any real solutions. But they know what they want! And they know that pain and the resulting anger out there are real. So they will muddy the waters to make the country impossible to govern while they acknowledge the visceral and direct the anger.
Left of Trump pundits are missing the point. It is not the rational versus the irrational. It is recognizing the irrational has gone far down the road looking for tangible ways to express its anger. Josh Hawley, prick that he is, pumps his fist in solidary with the January 6th insurrection. He acknowledges the pain and the anger.
Who is raising fists on the Democratic side? To be honest, I see it being done more by comedians and satirists on the left than any other group. They are acknowledging the pain and the anger people are experiencing.
We are at a deadly crossroads for so many issues. If President Biden and the Democrats are just going to tell people to keep voting, keep calm, as the iceberg approaches, the tragedy is inevitable. Emotional intelligence requires a response commensurate with the intersectional emergencies in front of us.
