moderates in the middle

(The original version of this post was written back in May and has been in my drafts folder waiting for me to decide if I want to start blogging again. Maybe I do.)

I will be forever grateful that I was not blogging during the end of the election season last year, or during the first few months of the new administration. I've heard the same from other bloggers-- absolutely the last thing most of us want is to wade into the fray, but how can you not talk about it? It feels like ignoring the largest elephant ever in a teeny tiny room if you don't talk about it, but what in the world do I have to say that hasn't already been said?

I'm starting to think the real political divide in this country isn't between liberals and conservatives, it's between moderates and extremists. By moderates I mean those of us on either side who want to stop yelling at each other and get on with the business of life and governing. Those of us who would be happy to compromise on some issues in order to get something done, those of us who care less about ideals than living in a functional world. We've been completely drowned out by the people with the finger pointing and the hyper sensitivity and the insistence that our way is The Right Way.

I suspect that moderate Democrats have more in common with moderate Republicans than they do with the extremists in their own party. But there are only about eight moderates left in the entire country, so we don't have much of a voice.

I'm not happy about Trump. I've disliked him since he was a preening, self-important playboy back in the 90s, before he had political ambitions, when he was already insulting women at every turn. I didn't vote for him, I wouldn't vote for him now if I had the chance to do it over, and I don't think he's doing a good job.

But I do have a great deal of respect for responsible, intelligent conservatism, especially the fiscal conservatives who are socially progressive. All the yelling and the outrage and the fury-- it's just feeding the problem, if you ask me, which of course you didn't. I suspect that when Fox News or Breitbart get the liberals riled up, they just sit back and smile. See? Toldja they were just a bunch of hysterical, whining babies. We must be doing something right if we're pissing them off.

We're not convincing them that they're wrong, we're just proving their point about how uncooperative liberals are. I've talked to conservatives who are unhappy with Trump, but I haven't talked to a single one who wishes they'd voted for Hilary. We are not changing their minds. If our goal is to start winning elections, we've got to win some of them over, and it's not going to happen unless we stop having such a short fuse and instantly leaping to criticize the smallest move the Republicans make.

I remember once back when Dean and I were in marriage counseling, we kept re-defining the same problems, reiterating how we disagreed, re-analyzing what the issues were. At one point the counselor said, OK, you're always going to disagree about this. At some point, if you're not getting a divorce, you've got to just move on.

Yeah. We're all still here, living in this country. At some point, we've got to just move on.

So I'm just going along, doing my thing, protesting in ways that seem helpful to me, expressing my opinion as calmly as I can, and biding my time until the next time I have a chance to vote. Sometimes when faced with homophobia or misogyny or racism, we have to plant our feet and not back down (like Charlottesville, and there are a whole lot of Republicans who agree). But Charlottesville aside, we also need to be careful we're not fanning the flames.

I've seen moderates get shredded on Twitter and elsewhere for being naive and unaware of how difficult our problems are. So maybe I am, but six months after I originally wrote this post, this is still how I feel, and moderates get to have freedom of speech, too.