Deal Breakers
For many folks, the insurrection at the capitol this week was more than the final straw. If we previously held on to Facebook friends that were supporting the other side, we let go. If we had boundaries around social media that prevented us from doomscrolling until 1:00 a.m., we gave up. We watched the news, lost sleep, commented with fury, retweeted, quoted and shared the appropriate (or inappropriate) memes. Behind it all were the looming questions. How did this happen? Where do we go from here? and Why do I feel so hopeless? What it comes down to is a question often used in relationships, but I find myself returning to it in my affiliations.
What are my deal breakers?
Deal Breakers and Politics
As I struggled to understand the unyielding support that was given to Trump in the 2016 election, I realized that the only way to see through the murk across party lines was to understand the deal breakers. Why were so many people willing to overlook Trump mocking a reporter with disabilities, referring to Haiti and countries in Africa as “shithole countries,” and his Access Hollywood “grab ‘em by the p***y” tape? For some, as long as his political agenda lined up with their deal breaker agendas, they were willing to overlook what were perceived as moral differences. Or better yet, they used their confirmation bias to believe that some of these events never happened in the first place, were simply taken out of context, or were not what he “meant” to say or do. As long as he committed to pro-life legislation, creating an impenetrable border wall, and nominating Supreme Court justices along party lines, they were willing to overlook the rest. It wasn’t about personal character, it was about political policy.
What goes unnoticed in the commitment to these deal breakers, is the harm that it does to the people that are directly impacted by Trump’s remarks. People with disabilities, immigrants that have sought refuge in the United States, and women that have been victims of sexual assault and abuse look to the leader of the country and know that their needs aren’t important to him or his supporters. They see friends and family members support him despite his remarks and feel deeply that they value political policy over them. The conversation then shifts from one about political policy to a more personal one about a lack of compassion and empathy.
Deal Breakers and Christianity
The biggest deal breaker for Christians that led many of them to support Trump was pro-life abortion policy. The deeper you dig in to the evangelical world, the more conviction you find around this topic. After sharing pro-choice quotes and perspective, I had Christian friends reach out and ask me how I could support “baby murder.” Recently, in a group of Christians where it was assumed we were all pro-life, one commented that he was appalled when he heard about Christians that are not actively advocating for pro-life legislation, let alone falling within the pro-choice camp. “How can you call yourself a Christian and not be pro-life?” he lamented, not realizing he was in mixed company. The truth here lies not in the conservative perception that pro-choice folks are practically advocating to canvas neighborhoods and schools to start offering abortions over contraception. The root is in belief about a woman’s right to make choices about her body without having government legislation preventing her from making the safest, healthiest choice for herself.
Ken Stern, former NPR executive and author of “Republican Like Me: How I Left the Liberal Bubble and Learned to Love the Right,” writes about this divisive issue by pointing out that abortion is not as black and white as it seems. When surveyed, many conservatives would agree that in instances where the life of the mother is at stake, abortion would be appropriate. On the flip side, many liberals admitted that when abortions are considered for reasons like electing a preferred gender, they would not support it. Social justice advocate Shane Claiborne surveyed Christians on social media to find that many conservatives and liberals alike agreed that abortions should be safe, legal, and rare. Abortion policies and politics can not be put into simple categories, which makes it difficult to understand why folks stand on this issue alone when deciding which candidate should hold presidential office. After examining many politically divisive issues in his book mentioned above, Stern concludes,
Things can go greatly wrong when our politics become so alienated, when we are willing to vote for the worst of our own side above anyone from the other side.
Deal Breakers and White Supremacy
Electing Trump as president has also shown that a solid majority of folks in our country believe that racism is not a deal breaker. Trump’s “Make America Great Again” had undertones of by unapologetically elevating whites after riding on the heels of his campaign to take Barack Obama down with the birther movement’s suggestion that he wasn’t a true American citizen. Trump appealed to the white working class by reminiscing to the era of American-born industry, and suggesting that the American dream is always available to those who work hard enough. In doing so, he failed to recognize that not only was he was reminiscing to historical time periods that were quite traumatic for people of color, he was also suggesting that the poverty and crime found predominantly in black and brown communities was there because people in these communities didn’t work hard enough. People that were furious when Colin Kaepernick knelt during the national anthem to protest police brutality held on to Trump’s message of “American patriotism” over the loss of black lives, and extremists raised their confederate flags without shame. The notion that confederate symbols might have racial undertones was no longer taken into consideration because instead of racism being the deal breaker, it became the freedom to decorate one’s house with their flag of choice.
Deal Breakers and Division
The insurrection at the capitol, the tearing apart of families that fall into different political camps, and the inability to have civil conversations across party lines have been a result of a refusal to acknowledge that by supporting one party, one policy, one protest, or one candidate, you have drawn a line in the sand in the name of taking a stance. And in many ways, that line, that stance, that deal breaker that you gave your heart to, was at the expense of someone else’s deal breaker. Under the Trump administration, our nation’s president encouraged his followers to fight to the death for what they saw as deal breakers: patriotism, freedom, and white supremacy. Last Wednesday at the capitol, that’s exactly what they did.
I have spent a lot of time in recent months evaluating my own personal deal breakers even beyond politics. Loving and affirming the LGBTQ+ community. Fighting against racism. Sacrificing time and money for those experiencing economic injustice. Creating an inclusive, loving Facebook community where folks can dialogue without judgement. When we find our deal breakers, we find answers to the hard questions. Should I continue attending a complementarian church where women aren’t allowed to have preaching roles, or should I find an egalitarian church where I can learn from women in leadership? Should I continue working in a profession that has caused extreme mental and emotional strain on me over the past several months, or should I chalk it up to COVID teaching and push through?
The key to having conversations across the dividing lines is an ability to state and explain one’s own deal breaker and be received with compassion and empathy. That is what we have lost in the last four years. We have been so focused on taking a stance, that we have lost compassion and empathy for those around us. The most productive conversation I have had in recent weeks was when we began the conversation with, “I don’t think we will agree with each other in the end, but I do want to understand why you feel this way.” We didn’t agree, but we did understand. Instead of, “you’re wrong,” it was, “I disagree.” The next step is to unpack and acknowledge the harm that can be done from particular stances on deal breaker issues.
I would encourage you to ask yourself, what are my deal breakers? Are they in any way causing harm to others? How am I able to have productive conversations with people that have a different perspective? Often our deal breakers come from our proximity to an issue. Maybe, in an effort to grow in compassion and empathy, we should find ways to draw nearer to issues that might not be at the forefront of our own lives, but have a great impact on the lives of our neighbors.
