How We Might Survive the Political Season – Charlotte Magazine

A letter from our ever-earnest back page columnist

Hello, reader of the future. I’m writing to you from late June. Such is the challenge of magazine journalism: While my friends at WFAE and Axios Charlotte get to write to you from about five minutes ago, I’m waving at you from back here in early summer. How are things there? Has the wait for Bird Pizzeria gone down yet?

The political situation here in June is, as you remember, unsettled. The first presidential debate was just days ago, and many of us still can’t remove our hands from our eyes. The only thing that seems worse than being in this moment, however, is wondering what may happen in the next one. I have little confidence we’ll fare much better when we become you, our September selves. I mean, you’ve been through it. Conventions, attack ads, hurricane season, and, holy cow, more debates. How’re you hanging in?

I’ve avoided politics on this page. We hear enough of it elsewhere, and few of us want more. But when I write a column devoted to Good People Doing Kind Things Quietly, politics can be the vehicle we drive to achieve change. We need this system to work, at least a little. Even for less-than-partisan folks, politics still infiltrates our social media feeds and ruins family dinners. National campaigns have come to us in North Carolina, and our own races have attracted the bewilderment of the country. It feels like the polluted water we’re forced to swim in.

At such a time, I worry this column is too earnest, that it’s the sound of violins on the increasingly angled deck of the Titanic. I show drafts to my husband and ask, “Is this too earnest?” And Jimmy reminds me that the writer is more than a tad earnest herself, and that’s OK. But it’s just not cool to be earnest. Earnest isn’t sexy. No one ever says, “Hey, you’ve got to read that writer who just tries so hard to believe in things.”

I read a book published this year that eased my concerns. It’s Who’s Afraid of Gender? by Judith Butler, a brilliant philosopher and kind thinker. Butler proposes that we stop engaging with people who argue in bad faith—people who mock or argue against imaginary points that no serious person has actually made. “It seems that we are not in a public debate at all,” Butler wrote, “precisely because there is no text in the room, no agreement on terms, and fear and hatred have flooded the landscape where critical thought should be thriving.”

Instead of giving oxygen to bad-faith arguments, Butler suggests we envision how things could be if only we accepted and helped each other more. What if we created a picture so vivid that it shouts over the belittlers? Instead of harkening back to a past that never happened, what if we showed others a future that could?

It’s a lovely thought. And so very earnest.

But I still wonder if earnestness is enough, if this column is enough in a time of Bad People Doing Great Harm Loudly. How much anger does this moment call for? How much hope? How much resistance? How much acceptance? We hold so many conflicting emotions that it’s no wonder we’re exhausted. But I do believe the worst outcome is one that hardens us, either to others or to our own sense of agency.

I offer two minor propositions from back here in June. One, don’t engage with people who argue in bad faith or with bad manners. This includes anyone who enjoys getting a rise out of people for sport via words or social media posts. Engage with ideas, advocate for your beliefs, refute falsehoods, and please—pleeeeease—vote. Life’s too short to engage with people who seek to deceive, mock, or rile. (This tip goes especially for you, September-me.)

Two, get severely uncool. Try painting a mental picture of the way things could be. Keep that imaginary picture handy when you’re at your tipping point while reading the news or during dinner with Uncle You-Know-Who, so you can channel that frustration into something productive. Is there one thing you can do to make a corner of the world a little more like that picture?

Maybe our September selves have it all figured out, and we’re just chilling together with zero concerns and delicious pizza. But if not: Take care of yourselves. Paint your picture. Then add a brushstroke or two that can make even a tiny part of it real.