The Political Fight after the Arizona Shooting

Americans shouldn't use one crazy gunman’s random fixations to trigger the kind of reform modern political culture needs.

The Tucson, Arizona rampage earlier this month left Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords critically wounded, six citizens dead, and millions of Americans jumping to the right conclusions for the wrong reasons. Yes, we need more civil politics. But no, we should not use one crazy gunman’s random fixations to trigger the kind of reform modern political culture needs.

I confess, having written the 2008 book Leading from the Center: Why Moderates Make the Best Presidents, calling for centrism and civility, that I am tempted to go with the flow of conventional wisdom this time. Right after this mass shooting at one of Gifford’s “Congress on Your Corner” citizen meet-and-greets, preaching pundits began blaming the vitriol in general, and Republicans in particular.

Human beings love stories, crave causality. We rubberneck at traffic accidents, trying to divine the triggering chain of events, hoping to avoid that fate ourselves. After President John F. Kennedy’s assassination in 1963, its seeming randomness compounded the national trauma. Many Texans had vilified Kennedy, but no evidence linked those particular critics with Kennedy’s murder.

Politics is a domesticated form of verbal, ideological, and personal warfare, frequently explained with fighting words. The word “campaign” originated in the 1600s from the French word for the open fields where long-sustained battles took place – la campagne. In 1940, Franklin D. Roosevelt “rallied” the “troops” – his Democratic supporters – by saying, “I am an old campaigner, and I love a good fight.” In 2008, America’s modern Gandhi, Barack Obama himself, telegraphed toughness at the start of his campaign, saying of his Republican rivals: “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun.”

“Targeting” opponents and even drawing crosshairs on rival candidates’ districts is not the problem. As candidates, both Roosevelt and Obama also spoke creatively and constructively. Political civility comes from tempering toughness with openness, seeking consensus, acknowledging complexity, varying tone, and periodically agreeing to disagree agreeably. Politics sours when the tone is constantly shrill, when enemies are demonized, positions polarized.

There is too much shouting in American politics today, from left and right, against George W. Bush and Barack Obama, on MSNBC and Fox, by reporters seeking sensation and by bloggers stirring the pot. Politics becomes scary when dozens of complex crosscutting issues are reduced to one with-me-or-against-me worldview. As a Democrat who opposes gun control, Gabrielle Giffords herself refuses to be doctrinaire. New York’s colourful former mayor Ed Koch once said: “If you agree with me on nine out of 12 issues, vote for me. If you agree with me on 12 out of 12 issues, see a psychiatrist.”

To our credit, most Americans understand when to holster partisan anger – even righteous indignation. And Americans excel at mounting the patriotic tableaus we witnessed on 9-11 when Democrats and Republicans spontaneously sang “God Bless America” on the Capitol steps, on Election Night 2008 when John McCain and Obama spoke so graciously of each other, and last Monday when the nation stopped for a moment of silence.

“Democracy begins in conversation,” the great educator John Dewey taught. The conversation should be passionate but tempered with a touch of humility, an acknowledgment of complexity, a reminder of the humanity of one’s opponent, and an appreciation for the enduring values, common history, and shared fate that bind fellow citizens together. Political parties work when they help individuals solve problems together; coalition-building works best when people have a range of affiliations, when people might pray together one morning and go to competing political meetings that night. Political parties become destructive when they demonize and polarize, becoming one of a series of reinforcing elements that pit half the country against the other half.

Recently, in Tucson, Arizona, a sweet nine-year-old girl named Christina Taylor Green was elected to her student council. Born on Sept. 11, 2001, Christina was always a particularly welcome symbol of hope to her friends and family. Last Saturday, a neighbour invited Christina to meet Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and “see how democracy works.” Christina ended up murdered, shot in the chest.

We should cultivate a politics of civility, not because of the insane murderer but because we all want to show “how democracy works,” in Christina’s memory, to honour Gabrielle Giffords’ lifework, and for our common good.