Opinion

GUEST COLUMN, J Basil Dannebohm, Rollins School of Public Health

There’s a Japanese proverb that says, “One kind word can warm three winter months.” If the rhetoric of recent days is any indication, we’re in for a frigid winter.

Recently, Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, co-hosts of MSNBC’s Morning Joe, shocked viewers when they chose to “restart communications” with Donald Trump. Since 2020, Morning Joe has been less about “news” per se and more about relentless attacks on the 47th President of the United States. Referring to Mr. Trump as a “fascist” and comparing him to Hitler was music to the ears of their far-left audience. When Scarborough informed viewers of the Mar-a-Lago meeting, Morning Joe got iced.

Rival network CNN alleged the meeting was called because of retaliation threats posed by the incoming administration. That’s rich considering CNN is hardly the poster child of fair and impartial journalism. Byron York, chief political correspondent for the Washington Examiner, tweeted, “Annals of shamelessness: They call Trump a fascist, and much, much more, and then, just 22 days after his ‘Nazi-like’ rally, they fly to Florida for an audience.”

The criticisms from CNN and York paled in comparison to the court of public opinion who took to X (formally Twitter) to air their grievances.

“Imagine being a liberal and listening to Morning Joe and Mika tell you for years that Trump is a threat to democracy … Then one morning you wake up and hear Comrade Mika admit that they bent the knee to Trump,” one disgruntled viewer tweeted.

The next day, Scarborough defended the decision to meet with the president-elect saying, “All of us are going to do the best we can do, and we’re all working towards a better America.”

He continued by pointing out what he said was a “massive disconnect” between “social media and the real world.”

Good morning, Joe. You finally noticed it, eh? Take it from me, Mr. Scarborough, most people aren't loyal to you. They’re loyal to their need of you. Once their needs change, so does their loyalty. Similarly, most people find anger addictive because it makes their egos feel righteous, justified or victimized. Pointing a finger at somebody else is much easier than examining one's own shadows.

If you’re a gambler, it’s probably a safe bet that Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski have been what the left affectionately refer to as “cancelled.”

The reality is something we registered Independents have known for years: neither side wants to “work toward a better America.” Rather, the far left and the far right alike seek an America that conforms entirely to their respective agendas. Anything less is wholly unacceptable. The days of statesmanship, give-and-take, and bipartisanship are long gone. As the late Senator Joseph Lieberman observed, “It is the partisan polarization of our politics which prevents us from making the principled compromises on which progress in a democracy depends.”

Dr. Michael R. Liebowitz, a Columbia University psychiatrist and founder of the Anxiety Disorders Clinic at the New York State Psychiatric Institute noted, “It is easy to win people over by an appeal to their anger, hatred, and fear. It is more difficult to win them over by appealing to their reason, optimism, and hope. Still, it is much better to take the latter route."

That becomes increasingly difficult as anti-intellectualism steadily becomes a pandemic in our nation. I’ve taken blows from both sides of the political spectrum. When I urged people to stop clutching their pearls over the Opening Ceremonies of the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics, my inbox was peppered with hate mail from “do as I say, not as I do” Christians and virtue signaling conservatives. Pointing out the hypocrisy of the hyper-woke, radical left inevitably meets the same fate.

There’s a line in the much-anticipated theatrical release of Wicked wherein the Wizard of Oz states, “The best way to bring folks together is to give them a real good enemy.”

But what about when the perceived “enemy” is half the nation? How do “folks” heal from such a dangerous divide?

Communication – listening, not just hearing, is imperative – even if it makes us uncomfortable. People who can't communicate think everything's an argument; and people who lack accountability think everything is an attack. As Kierkegaard observed, “People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought, which they seldom use."

All aboard the Polar-ization Express! At the rate we’re going, this is indeed going to be a very long, very cold winter.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR — J. Basil Dannebohm is a writer, speaker, consultant, former legislator and intelligencer. His website is www.dannebohm.com. He writes from the Washington DC metro in the Commonwealth of Virginia.