A few of us are sufficiently old to recollect when midterm elections were pretty boring. Majorities of voters simply ignored them. Indeed, it was a source of frustration for media and academic institutions who tried to assist gin up interest in voting. More often than not it didn’t work.
But today we discover ourselves in a totally different place. A recent NBC News poll, as an illustration, found that voter interest on this election has reached an all-time high for a midterm.
Civic-minded Americans might think that is sweet news, but other numbers put what has happened in a more sobering light. About 80 percent of each Democrats and Republicans imagine that the country might be “destroyed as we realize it” if the opposite party just isn’t stopped on this election.
About 80 percent of each Democrats and Republicans imagine that the country might be “destroyed as we realize it” if the opposite party just isn’t stopped on this election.
People aren’t getting out to vote in record numbers because they’re paying closer attention to policy debates over the Iran nuclear deal or how you can improve educational outcomes after the Covid-19 learning loss. They’ve been convinced that they need to vote in light of an existential threat posed by a merciless “other” who desires to destroy them.
The causes of those trends have been well-documented, but they’re value reviewing here again. We now have known for a while that negative partisanship works significantly better than positive efforts by way of getting people out to the polls. But now the well-paid political and media consultants for every party and major campaign have the most recent technology available to micro-target voters with advertisements and social media posts that can most efficiently cultivate a passionate fear and loathing of “the opposite side.”
This vulnerability is very acute for individuals who have seen our post-modern culture hole out their positive identity in favor of an identity primarily defined by opposition and even hatred of the opposite. In case your primary identity doesn’t come from being a part of a family, a church or a occupation, micro-targeters have a target-rich environment for steering the sorts of algorithms your way which can be more than likely to get you to the polls.
In my latest book One Church: Rekindle Trust, Negotiate Difference, and Reclaim Catholic Unity, I even have created a field guide for resisting these idolatrous political forces and temptations with a laser-like concentrate on where our ultimate loyalties must lie as Catholics: with our church family.
Going all the way in which back to Peter and Paul, the pillars of the church, white-hot anger and debate over legitimate disagreements have at all times been a part of who we’re. They usually at all times might be.
Specializing in our common baptism might help us see this bond, for it is thru our baptism that we died to self and were reborn as a member of the body of Christ. It is thru our baptism that we’re reborn right into a latest family, the church, where our fellow churchgoers at the moment are our siblings. Indeed, if we’re honest with ourselves about what Jesus says about these matters within the Gospel, it might be that Christians should consider the family ties created by the waters of baptism stronger than those created by blood.
This might be difficult to simply accept, especially in our current hyperpartisan moment, nevertheless it is what Catholics are called to see and do. Happily, the Catholic family could be very accustomed to disagreement. Going all the way in which back to Peter and Paul, the pillars of the church, white-hot anger and debate over legitimate disagreements have at all times been a part of who we’re. They usually at all times might be.
But while you start with the bonds of family as the muse, that white-hot anger and debate comes not within the context of hollowed-out individuals bouncing around consumerist digital spaces but relatively within the context of positively identified individuals in a thick community of the church and grounded by their ultimate theological concerns.
We should not united in love regardless of our legitimate diversity of viewpoints and roles but due to them.
The political debates before us within the midterms should not unimportant, in fact. But when Catholics see these debates rightly, we are going to never allow them to fundamentally orientate ourselves in opposition to fellow Catholics as “the opposite.” Quite the opposite, once we engage in political debate with our fellow Catholics, regardless of how hot it gets, we rest assured knowing that what unites us will at all times be stronger and a better priority than our political disagreements.
Indeed, I argue in One Church that this foundational unity is what allows for a real openness to legitimate diversity. Because having a relationship in any respect requires difference, there isn’t any way for the people of God to be in a genuinely loving relationship with one another with no deep commitment to difference. We should not united in love regardless of our legitimate diversity of viewpoints and roles but due to them.
Healthy families still have fights. Sometimes the fights are even good for the family, as they permit difficult truths to be spoken at key times and once they otherwise won’t be spoken in any respect. But, again, healthy families rest secure in knowing that the bonds which connect us can’t be broken, even by this next “most vital election of our lifetimes.”
So let’s have the arguments. Let’s go vote. After which let’s argue some more. Most of the issues at stake are indeed very vital. But let’s do that fully grounded in our primary commitment to the church, our Catholic family, as a spot of unity in legitimate diversity.