“Takes all kinds of people to make up a world.”
These words were spoken by Kurt Vonnegut’s beloved fictional weirdo, Kilgore Trout, in his book Breakfast of Champions. In the scene, Trout is having a conversation with a truck driver about people with religious beliefs that seemed strange to him. Trout, however, acknowledged the beliefs with a casual, open-hearted acceptance. “Takes all kinds of people to make up a world.”
I reflect on these words often. Democracy, while imperfect in practice, at least attempts to make room for all kinds of people. What worries me about the current administration is that it does not.
A yelling Stephen Miller, in an interview with Sean Hannity on August 25, insisted that the Democratic party “is an entity devoted exclusively to the defense of hardened criminals, gangbangers, and illegal alien killers and terrorists. The Democrat party is not a political party. It is a domestic extremist organization.” Near the end of the interview, Miller claimed: “President Trump has literally set the people of Washington D.C. free. They’re so happy now. They can just go out and live their lives… you see moms taking kids out to parks they haven’t been to in years because they know the police are there, they know that President Trump is there with his law enforcement to protect them. It’s a thing of beauty, Sean. But I would say to the mayor of all these democrat cities, like Chicago, what you are doing to your own citizens is evil. Subjecting your own citizens to this constant bloodbath and then rejoicing in it is evil. And you should praise God every single day that President Trump is in the White House.”
With this incendiary rhetoric, Miller paints a picture of an America ravaged by storybook villains (you know the kind – evil, plain and simple, with no backstory) that only the good, plain and simple, hero (Trump) can destroy. Painting the world in such black-and-white terms is not only childish, not only inaccurate, but also incredibly dangerous. Because when you claim to be fighting evil— even if those claims are spurious—then you have created the justification to destroy. I am reminded of another Vonnegut quote, this time from Mother Night:“There are plenty of good reasons for fighting… but no good reason ever to hate without reservation, to imagine that God Almighty Himself hates with you, too. Where’s evil? It’s that large part of every man that wants to hate without limit, that wants to hate with God on its side… that punishes and vilifies and makes war gladly.”
Vonnegut’s poignant observation that evil can be a part of us all and not just something that one political “side” or one a particular “type” of people embody is evocative of something Thich Nhat Hanh once wrote: “Man is not the enemy. Our enemy is hatred, anger, ignorance and fear.”
Miller’s rant was not based on objective reality. What he did not do in the interview was convey the truth. There is no “bloodbath.” What he did instead was try to arouse passionate feelings. He was trying to evoke fear, anger, and disgust. His claim that Democrats are not just misguided, not just incorrect, but evil, suggests that he thinks it is not even worth trying to work with them or find common ground. This is not a recipe for democracy. This is not an appreciation of all kinds of people.
Probably the first step of addressing the chasm of political divisiveness is to at least acknowledge the “other side” as human. Acknowledging common humanity undergirds empathy. What worries me deeply is the lack of acknowledgement implied in language that dehumanizes people with terms like “illegal alien.” And to paint as “evil” a party that opposes what ICE is doing, the militarized takeover of D.C., and the probable takeover of other cities, fails to acknowledge the humanity of the targets of these cruel theatrics as well as the people who oppose them.
Listening to Miller yell immediately reminded me of Timothy Snyder’s words in On Tyranny about fascists in history: “Fascists despised the small truths of daily existence, loved slogans that resonated like a new religion, and preferred creative myths to history or journalism. They used new media, which at the time was radio, to create a drumbeat of propaganda that aroused feelings before people had time to ascertain facts. And now, as then, many people confused faith in a hugely flawed leader with the truth about the world we all share. Post-truth is pre-fascism.”
How can we preserve democracy and stop the slide into fascism? How can we make room for all kinds of beliefs and all kinds of people? How can some of us stop seeing the “other side” as evil or as less than human? Is any of this possible at all? Coming from a Buddhist perspective, I believe that compassionate dialogue is one of the only paths toward peace. It’s a slow game, and one many would argue is a naïve, impossible dream. How can you feel compassion toward someone who rejects others’ humanity? How can they, in turn, have a change of heart and feel compassion toward their former victims? How can we even believe that such people deserve compassion? A lot of us are so entrenched in our political beliefs that we can’t fathom seeing the perspective of the “other side.” I understand the reasoning behind all these objections. I struggle with them daily. And maybe that makes me a Bad Buddhist (à la Roxane Gay in Bad Feminist).
Yet, I still (naïvely or not) think it’s important to sit with these questions. (Of course, ideally the perpetrators of harm, like Stephen Miller, would sit with them, too, and eventually recognize the suffering they cause). What makes America great is all kinds of people, as long as they’re not hurting anyone else— all kinds, not just the ones who, as Miller wants, praise God that Trump is in office, not just White folks, not just Republicans, but also immigrants, people who the now-contested DEI label used to attempt to support, people of all races, ethnicities, and gender identities, and people who have political opinions different from those of the current administration. Stephen Miller wants us to believe in a simplistic, storybook archetype of evil that one political party exclusively embodies. He believes those people are enemies. Meanwhile, Thich Nhat Hanh asserts that our enemy is not each other, but the ego-filled, ugly emotions that divide us. What a powerful clarion call for peace. Maybe fully believing Thich Nhat Hanh’s words – embodying them and putting them into practice, even if it’s hard! – is part of our calling in these times.