As the election heats up and Hillary
Clinton gains at the national polls, I want to breathe a sigh of relief and let
go of anxiety, but I tell myself "not yet." Standing in the shower today, I thought, this
wouldn’t be happening, it wouldn't even be a close contest, if Bernie Sanders
and his supporters hadn't chosen to try and win by trashing Hillary Clinton. They
lost anyway but they've done so much damage.
Anybody who has taken a side in the US election
season is likely to have been insulted by somebody feeling equally passionately
but on the other side.
I've had insults hurled at me from the left
and the right. To my surprise, I haven't felt personally hurt. A comment I left
on a New York Times article was published and I had over 450 comments, many
from angry Bernie Sanders supporters who
actually didn't read what I said. I was even accused of being a $hillary Wall
Street whore. I wish.
But what hurts my brain and my heart is the
misinformation that's spread around so liberally and high-mindedly.
Scapegoating. It gets all the molecules of my being vibrating madly, wildly and
very noisily. Which probably means it scares me shitless.
I hated it when Barack and Michelle Obama
were the targets, and I hated it just as much when Bernie Sanders was. So it's
understandable that I'd it when Hillary Clinton is the target.
When you scapegoat, two things happen. One,
you don't perceive your victim to be a human being dealing with issues you
probably will never have to. Two, it's never about them, it's about your
frustration with yourself or your own life and your belief that you're
powerless to change any of it. We've probably all scapegoated at some point. It
feels very satisfying in the moment and makes you feel tremendously powerful,
but you can't sustain that feeling, so you have to do it again. And again.
Yeah, there's a word for that. Addiction.
Your own rage builds on itself and you get
nastier and nastier. The more you do it the more you have to lock out good
sense and real information. It achieves nothing, but it does a lot of damage,
to you and the target.
It's a bit like the photo, which is of my
apartment. There chair is facing inward but it's empty. The reflection of the chair faces out to the view and the open
horizon. When you scapegoat you long to access what the horizon promises but until
you choose to sit in that chair and face yourself and be real, only requiring culpability from people who actually are
culpable, it will never happen for you. You'll always be facing away from the
good stuff. The best part of you will always be the
ghost.
And if, in politics, the person you're rooting for can only win because
his supporters trash the opposition, it's because his good points aren't strong
enough to win with. But if he gets into power his weak points will override the
strong and then everybody suffers.
Would Bernie Sanders have gotten so much
support if his movement hadn't relied on trashing Hillary Clinton? And if he was such a great leader, why not
just promote his strength? His campaign started out that way. It was all about love and
truth and honor. Now it's all about rage, scapegoating, hatred, misinformation and conspiracy theories. Bernie Sanders said he would do everything
he could to prevent the GOP candidate from winning. But in effect he's done
nothing. His endorsement of Hillary Clinton was lukewarm in intent and what is
he doing now? A lot of his supporters have said they'll endorse Jill Stein. They
just don't care that it could give the presidency to the GOP nominee.
Sanders said he fully understood the
problem with Ralph Nader and he had no intention of repeating that mistake. But
in truth he started a Ralph Nader movement and he's powerless to stop it. If he's trying he's being tremendously discreet.
So, though I'm relieved that Hillary
Clinton is climbing in the polls and the GOP candidate is dropping like a stone,
I'm holding my breath.
Connect with me on Twitter: @JenniferJS_
Connect with me on Twitter: @JenniferJS_
