Compassion

I keep trying to figure out how to look with compassion at people who are in favor of Trump and Kavanaugh. Yet the naked ugliness of the Trumpian agenda is so startling in its intensity, in its sneering contempt, that I am left scratching my head.

I am trying to understand what is going on with the millions of Americans who still support these people. What allows them think it ok that an out of control and nakedly partisan character like Kavanaugh is ascending to our Nation’s highest court?

Because I think we really need compassion here. We are talking about people who love their children, who help their communities, who I am sure still see America as something worthwhile.

So what is happening? Is this what it felt like in other countries, in other eras, as a society began to slide into authoritarianism? Were people so hungry for a “strong hand” that they allowed leaders who clearly lacked any moral center to start taking over all the reins of power?

I am wondering whether we can stem this seeming slide into the familiar pattern of a democracy sliding into Authoritarianism, if we manage to appeal to people through compassion. But things have gotten so extreme at this point that I am not sure where to begin.

I have friends here in Paris who had been planning on moving back to the U.S., but now they are scared of returning. They are worried about the thought of their children growing up in a country that seems to be becoming unrecognizably coarse and cruel.