I rarely make New Year’s resolutions, because why make a promise to yourself that you’ll break? For instance, I used to resolve that this was the year I would finally take off the weight and keep it off. Well, that resolution has repeatedly crashed against the rocks of time and I’m still overweight.
So, I was amazed to find myself committing to a resolution for 2023. It’s based on something said by St. Thomas Aquinas: “We must love them both, those whose opinions we share and those whose opinions we reject.”
With the advent of Donald Trump, polite political discourse was no longer possible for me. If you liked Trump, then I found it hard for me to like you. I found white, male, Christian friends were the first to go, because they all drank the Kool-Aid and became Trumpites. Suddenly, I could not bear to be around men I had called friends for more than 20 years.
I found it hard to believe that these and other friends – who seemed liberal and “woke” – were suddenly Neanderthals, following a white nationalist who lied, cheated and lied again. I tried to explain to a white friend that anyone who followed Trump was akin to Germans who followed Hitler. He did not understand me.
Parallels between the white nationalist Trump movement and Hitler’s Nazism are too scarily similar. If I was Jewish, it would be impossible for me to be friends with a pro-Hitler German. Therefore, as a Black man in America, I found it difficult to maintain relationships with white men who loved Trump – a racist who borrowed let’s “Make America Great Again” from the Ku Klux Klan. The klan used this phrase to describe an America where white people were on top and Black people knew their “place.”
How could I be friends with white people who applauded a man who wanted to oppress Black people, build a wall to stop Mexicans from crossing our border, stop immigration from “sh-thole countries,” stop visitors from Muslim countries and otherwise create policies that would ensure white people don’t lose the demographic war? Black and brown people are having more babies and emigrating to this country in greater numbers. Black and brown people will be the majority in 2040 and Trump rose to power espousing ideas to stop this demographic trend.
Trump stirred up white people who were tired of “diversity,” “affirmative action” and feeling that their white privilege was slipping away. He reached some of my closest friends who, whether they wanted to admit it to themselves or not, felt under siege as white males in America. So, we stopped talking. One friend asked if we could be friends again after the presidential election. I mumbled that I would try.
Prior to the 2020 election and Biden’s victory, I was contemplating leaving the U.S. for a safer environment. Antisemitism and racism have been on the rise, and so have physical attacks on people because of their race or national origin. I did not want to be like the Jews in Germany who watched a madman come to power and waited too long to get out. If Trump had won reelection, the Clynes would have returned to the Caribbean.
Just to make the record clear, I am not Jewish. I am simply referencing historical parallels. Please don’t confuse me with Republican Congressman-elect George Santos, who lied about his education, his work history and even his national origins. But what is lying to voters in a post Trump world? Nothing! At least it seems to mean nothing to most Republicans. No one in the Republican party is calling for Santos’ removal for lying. Integrity seems to mean nothing to Republicans. Honesty means nothing to them. The only thing that matters is power – getting it and keeping it. If that means accepting someone who lied to get into office, that’s fine.
But I digress. What does St. Thomas’ statement have to do with political discourse? It means that America is so divided that some of us must learn to listen with respect again. We need to respect opposite political opinions.
Reginald J. Clyne, Esq.
Yes, if we want to return to a normal time, when friends could discuss politics and still stay friends, then I must love people who follow Trump and even try and listen to them with respect. Yes, it means swallowing the anger that arises so quickly when a Trumpite spouts something stupid. I’ll have to bury that anger and smile. If enough of us decide to respect the other side, then maybe we can return to normalcy, when we had two political parties and could still be friends with people who opposed our point of view.
I am not sure that I can quite achieve this goal, but it amazes me that Aquinas, a 12th-century monk and philosopher, said something so many hundreds of years ago that is still so appropriate in America today. Americans need to learn to love each other again, listen to each other and develop a moral code once more. We cannot continue this “us vs. them” mentality. We are now as divided a country as we were before the Civil War.
If those of us with a conscience do nothing, then we will allow the meanness, nastiness and “you must do everything to win” philosophy to prevail, and an America where moral values mean something will disappear. Let’s kill the haters with kindness instead.
Reginald J. Clyne is a Miami trial lawyer who has practiced in some of the largest law firms in the United States. Clyne has been in practice since 1987 and tries cases in both state and federal court. He has lived in Africa, Brazil, Honduras and Nicaragua.