Open Minds ...
Are a rare and treasured thing to find
I’ve never met Lorraine Alden, who calls herself “the gal from Kalamazoo,” but I always look forward to her comments, partly because she taught me the term “doryphore” and mostly because she is perceptive and common-sense smart.
Two days ago, I posted in this column that “progressive” Democrats who support Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan’s U.S. Senate primary, and “moderate” ones who back Haley Stevens or Mallory McMorrow, should remember that they will need to come together and unite around whoever wins the August 4th primary.
This provoked a firestorm of reaction, with a lot of ranting and people talking at each other, easy to do when you have never met them in real life. At some point, Ms. Alden said to one of them, “Did you bother to read the column?”
The ranter had said she’d never vote for someone who was anti-Israel, etc. etc. Naturally, she never answered. But if I may take the liberty of addressing folks by their first names, I could have told Lorraine:
Of course she didn’t, at least not past the first sentence or so.
All this called forth a memory from more than thirty years ago. For several years, I covered Jack Kevorkian, aka “Dr. Death,” and his crusade to make physician-assisted suicide legal, for both local and national media. This was in the early-mid 1990s, when email was just beginning to come into common use, and people still wrote letters. And before long, I noticed something:
The vast majority of the responses had little or nothing to do with whatever I had written. Most went something like this: A) Kevorkian is either the country’s most successful serial killer, or he is playing God. We need to stop him, or we will in turn feel the wrath of God. Or …
B) Dr. Kevorkian is a saint, an angel of mercy. My Uncle Ernie suffered horribly, screaming in our back bedroom for years before he died. He would have done anything, our family would have done anything to find a Dr. Kevorkian who could have ended his suffering.
The responses I saw were about 3-2 in favor of Option B.
Now, I’m seeing the same pattern in the response to my columns, and some others. When I was critical of Israel and Benjamin Netanyahu some time ago, a few Jewish people dropped or blocked my column. When I said Wednesday that both supporters and opponents of Abdul El-Sayed needed to be good sports and support the winner of the primary, both sides angrily rejected that.
They also attacked me, since I was honest enough to say 1) I wouldn’t vote for El-Sayed in the primary, but 2) I thought we all should support him in November if he is the Democratic nominee.
One woman who is devoted to a group called “Jews for Abdul,” wrote a huge screed denouncing what I had written as my lamest column yet, attempting to prove that El-Sayed was an amazing genius who would save us all etc. etc. and said she was “frankly suspicious of my motives.”
I think she was hinting that I was either A) in the pay of AIPAC, the Israel propaganda outfit B) a Palestinian-hating racist or C) just stupid.
Naturally, she disregarded the fact that I said I’d vote for El Sayed if he is nominated.
Well, while I can’t rule out C), the truth is D) Mostly, I think it is essential, in Donald Trump’s America, that the Democrats hang on to the senate seat.
But I can’t really discuss this with Sara, because she promptly disabled my Substack from sending her more communication.
That’s the problem in today’s world. Most of us talk at each other, not to each other, and are uncomfortable logically defending their positions and, Zeus forbid, from opening their minds. Which is particularity frustrating in the world of Trump.
People: Today’s Republicans are no more willing to tolerate dissent from what the Slob in Chief believes or does than a Soviet apparatchik would have been apt to disagree with Stalin in 1950.
We have only one party standing for free speech, debate and democracy today. Lose that, and, well … you won’t be reading this column any longer.
And that will be the least of your troubles.
I will vote for the candidate that wins the Democratic primary. They all have their pros and cons. But it is imperative we elect as many democrats as possible at this point. In fighting is a gift to Republicans. Why give it to them when we we are battling fascism?
Great column. Needed to be said. Democrats MUST win in November!