Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult. On the contrary, repay evil with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing. 1 Peter 3:9 (NRSV).
Election season can be disorienting. It is easy to lose track of what is helpful and what is destructive, what is necessary and effective to win, what the cost of winning can be, and even how we should define a “win.”
A quick internet search brings up a host of articles about Michelle Obama’s recent apparent abandonment of her own dictum, “When they go low, we go high.” That phrase, popularized by the former First Lady eight years ago, is described in an article by Danielle Campoamor as “a well-intentioned but ultimately doomed philosophy that seemed to condone Democrats’ long history of bringing a squirt gun to a semiautomatic gun fight.”
The current prevailing opinion seems to be that the insults, petty jokes, falsehoods, and innuendo employed by Donald Trump seem to prevail, and integrity is quaint and adorable, but ineffective. The most common take I have heard in conversation with democrats about going high in response to meanness is, “it just didn’t work.”
I can’t help but think of conversations about nonviolence with people who are unfamiliar with what the term actually means. If nonviolence means, as it is often interpreted to mean being nice or being weak, in essence “bringing a squirt gun to a semiautomatic gun fight,” then it is fair to say that doesn’t work.
But that’s not what it means. It means redefining the fight entirely and engaging on different terms. It is so easy and so common to reduce our choices to violence or inaction, when in truth, there are many other options for action. As theologian and nonviolence scholar Walter Wink taught, there are “Third Way” approaches, and they are often much more effective than fight or flight.
Saying that “it didn’t work” assumes that a meaner discourse from the left would have enticed voters to the left, and that it would have been enough to make the 2016 election come out differently. There are many reasons that the 2016 election went the way it did, and it seems strangely reductionist to put all the blame for that outcome on the choice to refrain from petty insults.
The whole idea of “what works” also invites us to think about the alternative — if one side of a political contest constantly hurls made-up insults and epithets, and the other side refrains from doing so, there is a clear moral choice. But if both engage in the same behavior, it becomes harder to draw the line, and the standards and norms are simply adjusted. There is a case to be made that the worst defeat in such a struggle is not to lose, which leaves you to return for the next contest, but to become your opponent. Isn’t that the deepest defeat, to drag the whole world down a notch, with no one left to speak for integrity? Wouldn’t that be an even more complete defeat, masquerading as a win?
That said, it is easy to miss the difference between insults and painful truths. Speaking clearly about the shortcomings of an opponent is legitimate and arguably necessary in a political contest. But innuendo about Donald Trump’s anatomy, jokes about false and previously debunked claims pertaining to J.D. Vance’s teenaged proclivities aren’t faithful approaches and they don’t serve anyone well, with the possible exception of internet influencers who end up with a juicy topic to sell. And I am not at all convinced they are effective in terms of swaying voters.
Dan Snyder, in his insightful book, Praying in the Dark, makes the case that the ends are always embedded within the means. No candidate, nor human, is morally pure, but if a candidate makes the conscious choice to fight dirty, they will inevitably lead a compromised administration. In other words, if one wants to claim the moral high ground, a good start might be to actually stand on it.
Maybe, rather than bringing a squirt gun to a semiautomatic gun fight, it would be better not to bring a gun at all, to refuse to engage on those terms. Maybe it’s better to focus on telling a better story, and making a compelling case for a better way forward, a way that is rooted in compassion, and prioritizes the most marginalized.
Love is often dismissed as quaint and ineffective, as well, but it turns out that it is, in the most pragmatic sense, the most powerful force in the universe. I have seen quite a few people convinced to change course because they encountered undeniable love, integrity, and courage, but I have yet to see anyone insulted into making more compassionate decisions.
Love is not only the root of our faith, it is what transforms us all, in the end. If God is Love, let’s keep trying to go high.
Watch: David LaMotte’s recent TedxAsheville
Heroism is overrated. It is always movements that lead to large-scale change, though our dominant cultural narrative of change focuses on individuals. It is not naive to think you can change the world, it is naive to think you could be in the world and not change it, but that change happens in community.
