We can work with them

Today on the NPR program Weekend Edition Sunday host Lulu Garcia-Navarro discussed the national conversation with Carolyn Lukensmeyer of the National Institute for Civil Discourse and Ariela Schachter of Washington University in St. Louis.

Civil Discourse is an important topic when the current events include a mass shooting at a Pittsburgh Synagogue, ten bombs being sent to the nasty guy’s vocal critics, and a huge river of refugees (calling them a “caravan of migrants” whitewashes who they are) crossing Mexico.

Lukensmeyer says there is a direct line between a politician’s words and bombs in the mail. Verbal attacks on minorities – Muslims, African-Americans, women, disabled, reporters – is common during campaigns. We usually see increased violent attacks at that time. But this year those verbal attacks didn’t stop or even lessen after the campaign. Chants to lock up Hillary Clinton continue two years later.

Schachter says white Americans overwhelmingly associate undocumented immigrants with criminality, even though that’s factually unfounded. No surprise – the nasty guy keeps tweeting about that claim. This stereotype has even invaded liberal minds. Such negative messages tend to fade after two weeks. But the nasty guy makes sure we are bombarded with that message – which gets amplified by the media reporting on him.

That last point makes Garcia-Navarro wonder about how NPR should handle such situations.

Garcia-Navarro points out the dehumanizing language from the nasty guy. She says she gets emails from the right saying protesters are “hounding” politicians. How do we work through this?

Lukensmeyer responds by there are about 12% of the far right and about 10% on the far left who have no interest in closing the divide. But that leave close to 80% who discover, once they have a chance to step back, they can see the larger context and discover they like the others and can work with them. That’s our hope.

Schachter notes the effect of the nasty guy’s rhetoric on immigrant communities – they’re afraid to send kids to school, afraid to go to the doctor. These people are affected now.