Thomas Jefferson
My late, great mother, Barbara Page, likely wouldn’t approve of comedian Bill Maher’s words -- his language is too "colorful" for her -- but she’d smile at his actions, seeing them as far more powerful than meets the eye.
If you think today’s American politics are terrible, to me they seem similar to 1980, when the electorate found itself in a surly mood, having watched helicopters evacuate the country’s last diplomats, Marines, and members of the former South Vietnamese government five years earlier to U.S. Navy aircraft carriers in the South China Sea just prior to the country collapsing to the Communist North’s military forces.
Adding to the fractious temper was the newest international imbroglio: More than 50 of the country’s employees – diplomats and military personnel from our embassy in Tehran – were Iranian government hostages – and their release didn’t appear to be assured.
The country's inflation rate wasn't doing Americans any favors either. At nearly 15%, it was the highest it had been since 1947. And, then, there were the gas lines of 1979, with drivers lined up for hours, perhaps even miles in some cases, waiting to fill up their cars. I was one of them.
As the Congressional Budget Office saw the U.S. economy in July 1979, “inflation has been considerably higher than projected … largely because of an unexpectedly sharp rise in food and fuel prices.”
Sound familiar?
The country’s unemployment rate was also challenged, increasing from 5.9% in January 1979 to a peak of 7.8% in July 1980, and only just dipping to 7.5% by the November presidential election.
Those two benchmarks provided politicians with a relatively new talking point, the "Misery Index," which gauged the daily hardships Americans faced. Calculated by the adding the inflation rate (about 15% in 1980) to the unemployment rate (7.5% in 1980), it was over 20%.
These issues put people into one of two camps – either thinking the United States could return to greatness, make its power felt around the globe, including among its adversaries, or see the country as a has-been superpower, hobbled by a crippled economy, lacking the determination, tenacity and, potentially even the ability, to fight off a third-rate country in Iran let alone its only competing peer, the Soviet Union, which invaded Afghanistan days after Christmas in 1979 -- and was met by a U.S. response that didn't force an immediate withdrawal of Soviet forces.
As the days, weeks and months ticked closer to the presidential election, the country was vexed by its two choices: Either vote for change with former California Gov. Ronald Reagan as the next president or stick with what it knew, the incumbent, Jimmy Carter, who, despite his efforts, gave every appearance of being unable to control or improve events, international or domestic, especially the economy.
Making the presidential campaign intriguing – because he could be a spoiler for either Reagan or Carter – was a third choice, U.S. Rep. John Anderson (R-Ill.), for those deciding Carter didn’t earn a second term or that Reagan was too old or too extreme.
1980 was the first time I saw adults divided over the country's leaders, candidates and its future.
Perhaps the only thing separating them from today's adults was that they smoked and drank together – despite their differences. All too often what I witnessed, when my parents hosted these cocktail parties, was that, despite their opposing views, they agreed on the problems and their solutions were closely aligned, too. Better yet, their discussions were friendly. That alone might be the reason to bring back the cocktail parties of yore.
Long after these parties were over, I often asked my mother about the exchanges of differing views.
“If we’d just learn to listen, we could learn something from one another,” she replied. “And we’ll also discover we’re not that far apart.”
That might be considered brilliant by today’s standards.
But today it’s too easy to isolate ourselves behind a phone, a laptop, tablet, or desktop to dish out insults to friends, frenemies, family and those we don’t know and never will, especially when it comes to politics.
That was Bill Maher’s point when he had dinner with President Trump a few weeks ago in the White House.
A self-described centrist, possibly a registered Democrat, Maher didn’t suddenly go MAGA. He and his friend, Kid Rock, share “a belief that there’s got to be something better than hurling insults from 3,000 miles away,” he said.
What was the point of the dinner? To exchange views civilly.
“I've had so many conversations with prominent people who are much less connected, people who don't look you in the eye,” Maher said, describing his meeting with Trump during a recent show. “People don't really listen, because they just want to get to their next thing.
“None of that was him, and he mostly steered the conversation to, ‘What do you think about this?’ I know your mind is blown, so is mine,” Maher added.
“There were … moments when I hit him with a joke, or contradicted something and no problem,” Maher said.
“At dinner,” Maher said, “he was asking me about the nuclear situation in Iran in a very genuine, ‘Hey, I think you're a smart guy. I want your opinion,’ sort of way. And I said, ‘Well, obviously you're privy to things about it I'm not, but for what it's worth, I thought the Obama deal was worth letting play out because we made Iran destroy 98% of the uranium and they were 15 years away from a bomb.’
“And then I said to him, ‘But we got rid of that. You got rid of that.’ He didn't get mad or call me a left-wing lunatic. He took it in. I told him I thought parts of his plan for Gaza were wacky, but that I … supported the idea that Gaza could be Dubai instead of hell,” Maher added.
I suspect Maher has many thoughts and observations about Trump, maybe even a few fears, too.
But as he suggested on a recent show, if you want influence, it's imperative you converse not only with the people who agree with you but also with those with whom you disagree. Otherwise, you're curtailing your power and your leverage.
What Maher did at the White House involved more than just a nice talk with the president. It was a reflection of those who wrote the Constitution, especially the Preamble.
If We the People of the United States of America want better communities, a better country, one that solves its problems, one that's a shining example to the world of how democracy, tolerance, freedom, and rule of law work, and one that continues well into the future, we need more people like Bill Maher. He’s an outstanding example of a man who will meet, speak and dine with someone whose views are contrary to his, which is something Larry David might keep in mind. (Although, all told, I found his op-ed in The New York Times funny.)
We have a choice: We can be the people our preferred political party and politicians want us to be – divided, ruthlessly insulting and demonizing those with whom we disagree and dehumanizing them, too, in the name of a scorched-earth victory that pulverizes any chance of reconciling with those who vote differently.
Or we can be better: People engaging respectfully with one other – and listening too – whether the subject is politics, faith, sexual preferences, healthcare, the government’s role in society, taxes, economics, business, civil rights, China, Russia, and Iran, etc. The list is endless.
With the conservatives, I always feel like a liberal; with the liberals, I always feel like a conservative. In other words, I’m always in the middle, right where my mother was, hopefully always engaging with both sides respectfully and amiably.
I’ve traveled through 47 states and met people on both sides of the political divide. After meeting men and women in those many states, big cities, small towns, and remote locales, this is what I've noticed: We have a great country.
It’s due to our people, our fellow Americans, no matter their creed, ethnicity, gender, identity, political views, so forth and so on.
It’s found in Bill Maher, someone who can talk with Donald Trump, and many others with whom he disagrees, perhaps passionately so, and still be civil.
Maher's wisdom is rooted in Thomas Jefferson, who wrote:
I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend. during the whole of the last war, which was trying enough, I never deserted a friend because he had taken an opposite side; and those of my own state who joined the British government can attest my unremitting zeal in saving their property and can point out the laws in our statute books which I drew and carried through in their favor. however, I have seen during the late political paroxysm here, numbers whom I had highly esteemed draw off from me, insomuch as to cross the street to avoid meeting me. the fever is abating, & doubtless some of them will correct the momentary wanderings of their heart & return again. if they do, they will meet the constancy of my esteem, & the same oblivion of this as of any other delirium which might happen to them.
~ Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to William Hamilton, April 22, 1800
Can you be more like Bill Maher and Thomas Jefferson?
I think you can. I think we better.
