U.S. elections: beyond the Left/Right divide

From Othering to Belonging; from Replacing to Re-centering

The most important U.S. election of my lifetime (in our history?) is one week away. I can think of little else, so I may as well try to share what I’m thinking.

I want to live in a world where everyone belongs. It is the core premise behind my professional work (the emergent collaborative that is Building Belonging), and the inquiry that launched this newsletter last April: can we create an “us” without demonizing a “them”? I want this for two reasons. First, it’s the only accurate description of our interdependent world: it’s literally true, and our future as a species depends on us acting accordingly (every one and every thing belongs). Second, it’s the only way I’ve found to live and act where the means and ends align, that doesn’t require me to compromise some core moral value on my way to the promised land. As Joanna Macy said:

Mutual belonging is our birthright.

To be clear: this is a global challenge, particularly acute right now in large multiracial democracies (Brazil, India, the U.K., Turkey, South Africa, etc.) But I want to focus this post on the United States as the particular through which we can see the universal.

Right now there is no national-scale political home in the United States for people who share my aspiration. Instead we are each forced into Faustian bargains, most of which turn on this core choice: more autonomy/agency/significance (honoring your unique self), or more belonging (honoring your group identity)? Of course this is an impossible choice: we need both.

I believe there is a way to have our cake and eat it too: to acknowledge and address with clear eyes our complicated history, without being defined by it. To acknowledge how the fiction of race has been used to divide us, without being forever limited by it. It’s a fine balance, and a fraught path to walk; I want to use this post to try.

TL;DR: We have tended to accept a false dichotomy that forces us into one of two opposing viewpoints: one emphasizing impact (genocide of Indigenous people; enslavement of African people) and one intent (the City upon a Hill of our founding fathers). The task before us is to acknowledge the truths — and limitations — of each story, and to work together to take responsibility for the whole: for building a world where everyone belongs. This work is incredibly difficult; indeed, it’s never been done at the scale that this moment requires.

Thus it is imperative that we create space for all voices, and that we center those who are most impacted by our current systems: they are most likely to have answers that can lead us all out of this mess. But — and this is crucial — we cannot presume to know who is most impacted, nor who is prepared to take responsibility for the whole. Group identity can serve as a useful proxy indicator, but never the full story: we need to preserve room for individual agency, to let people self-identify how they see themselves in the broader story.

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Telling a new story: “Nothing about us, without us”

Like the last period of great protest in America (in the 1960s and 70s), this present moment is characterized by social movements — led by people historically marginalized — staking powerful claims to who “we” are, and who America is. 50 years after the Civil Rights Acts were signed, Black Lives Matter emerged to demand that America take Black lives seriously. 45 years after Congress passed the Equal Rights Amendment (but states failed to ratify), #MeToo emerged to again demand rights for women; 50 years after Stonewall, queer and trans people are still demanding recognition and equal rights. All of these claims — and many more besides — were levied against the status quo, represented by White (cisgender, straight) men. This is a demand for representation, for inclusion, for equity.

But several things are different this time. First, demographics have already changed facts on the ground: California schools are now 70% people of color, e.g. Second, where the protests of the late 1960s followed years of economic progress and a postwar boom economy characterized by low economic inequality, contemporary social movements are emerging against a backdrop of widespread economic precarity and unprecedented levels of inequality (thanks to 40 years of crushing neoliberalism). Finally, the constituency for change has grown, thanks to widespread discontent with the status quo: more people are looking for alternatives beyond mainstream Democrat/Republican offerings (the percentage of Americans who identify as “independent” has increased steadily since the 1960s, finally reaching a plurality in the last decade).

As the Narrative Initiative concluded in a recent review of global populist movements:

The question isn’t whether new leaders and ideas will govern, but which new leaders and ideas.

Here’s the thing: everyone is looking for a story, for a future, where they can see themselves in it. As an expression that emerged from the disability justice community puts it:

Nothing about us, without us, is for us.

From Othering to Belonging

At stake right now in America — and around the world — is this foundational question: who belongs? Put differently: who is “us”… and who decides? In an American context characterized by scarcity and zero-sum thinking (products of our settler colonial and capitalist origins), these questions assume existential urgency.

But here’s the paradox: we have to first create the “other,” before we can un-create it. Ken Wilber calls this the first function of religion: to create meaning for the separate self (by constructing an “other” from which to differentiate oneself). That is to say: “othering” is not bad, it’s necessary. I love Father Richard Rohr here:

Humans have a deep and legitimate need for an identity inside of this huge cosmos. To develop a healthy ego, we must differentiate and individuate; we must know we’re special and find a place where we are loved and where we belong without needing to prove ourselves. This is our launch pad.

But it’s necessary as a first step toward belonging, not an end in itself. As Dan Siegel notes, we have to differentiate first, then link. This is what Wilber calls the second function of religion, to complete the paradox: to transcend that very sense of self that we just established.

All great religions reach this conclusion: the Buddhist concept of interbeing; what Rohr calls the Cosmic Christ; the Hindu concept of brahman, etc. But here too there is an important insight. As john a. powell (director of the Othering & Belonging Institute, and in my view best in class on these issues) reminds us: the opposite of othering is not saming (uniformity), but belonging (unity without uniformity). It is learning to see ourselves as both separate… and in relationship. Interdependent. Our differences are essential: a thriving ecosystem requires a diversity of species; homogeneity leads to stasis and decline. As Marcella Bremer wrote:

The unspoken belief that to belong, we must conform — may be wrong.

From Breaking to Bridging

The problem of polarization in politics today is not identity politics: it’s what john powell calls “breaking” politics, an approach characterized by a harmful manifestation of “othering.” He explains:

Breaking sees the other as a threat, sees the other with fear, as somehow attacking who we are. And most of the stories, most of the practices that we engage in in our society, even in progressive communities, are breaking. We’re constantly defining ourselves in opposition to the other. We’re constantly defining the “we” in a narrow way.

This trend is best exemplified in the rise of authoritarianism around the world: it identifies an “other” (immigrants in Europe, Muslims in India, liberals in the U.S.); blames the “other” for a list of grievances; and weaponizes those grievances to undermine democracy itself by consolidating power in an authoritarian leader. This illiberal populism in almost all its incarnations takes a nationalist form; it has overwhelmingly been a right-wing phenomenon (Venezuela’s Maduro and the Philippines’ Duterte being exceptions proving the rule: Orban in Hungary, Johnson in the UK, Erdogan in Turkey, Bolsonaro in Brazil, Modi in India, Trump in the U.S., e.g., not to mention regimes that were already under authoritarian sway like Putin’s Russia and Xi’s China).

It was my deep concern with the global rise of patriarchal authoritarianism that led me to form the emergent collaborative that has become Building Belonging: an effort to offer an alternative narrative anchored in belonging rather than the ascendant narrative of “othering.” Two truths animate this work for me:

1) It’s clear that the “Right” is responsible for leading us toward authoritarianism globally, and that within that broader context the Republican Party in the United States is particularly dangerous in their willingness to flout and undermine core democratic norms and promote violence. A recent large-scale study concluded:

The data shows that the Republican party in 2018 was far more illiberal than almost all other governing parties in democracies.

2) And: I’m concerned that the “Left” has proven ineffective in preventing this slide. We have thus far been unsuccessful in offering a more attractive alternative that is capable of winning electorally (a reminder that most of the authoritarian personalities named above came to power democratically, albeit through systems that are themselves increasingly undemocratic… like the Electoral College).

If the antidote to othering is belonging, the antidote to “breaking” is “bridging.” I wrote about bridging in more detail here, but here’s the key insight for the communities I’m embedded in and concerned with: we can’t use the master’s tools. “Breaking” (the elevation of an “us” vs “them” paradigm) is the core feature of the authoritarian playbook. It can’t be ours. As Gibran Rivera reminds us (quoted by Lawrence Barriner II):

The best way to lose your humanity is to dehumanize others.

Here’s Gloria Anzaldúa, in my view best in class on the concept of “bridging” (which she evocatively calls mestiza consciousness):

The future depends on the breaking down of paradigms, it depends on the straddling of two or more cultures. - from La Frontera: the New Mestiza

Victimhood and the paradox of power

This one is really hard to understand, but absolutely vital. As Olga Khazan noted, “a sense of victimhood” is the key recruitment mechanism into white nationalism (and fascist extremist groups more broadly, as Shane Burley documents).

I’ve come to believe that much of our current polarization turns on this dynamic. It’s the paradox that those who have the most structural power in our society (White people, and men in particular) see themselves as victims. Trump masterfully plays to this dynamic, both constructing (and then presenting himself as the savior of) a “community under threat.” I think there are at least three things going on here.

1) What others experience as an expression of power is actually a manifestation of powerlessness (or a fear of powerlessness). bell hooks said it best:

When feminist women insist that all men are powerful oppressors who victimize from the location of power, they obscure the reality that many victimize from the location of victimization… Much male rage covers up this place of suffering.

This is a spin on the adage that “hurt people hurt people,” perpetuating a cycle of trauma. In this case, men are actually victims (in the binary of victim/offender) before they become perpetrators. It’s important to note here that men often aren’t fully aware of this dynamic, or if we are at some level we can’t acknowledge it given our socialization into the rigid rules of manhood. Michael Kaufman’s foundational piece on the “7 Ps of Male Violence” blows my mind every time I read it; here’s how he boils it down:

If manhood if about power and control, not being powerful means you are not a man.

2) Male violence (and White victimhood more broadly) stems from what Michael Kimmel calls “aggrieved entitlement.” The basic idea is: I followed the rules, I did what society said I had to do, I deserve this. Arlie Hochschild has the best take on this phenomenon in the context of whiteness and the American “Right” more broadly in her foundational work on the “deep story,” an evocative metaphor about waiting patiently in line for the American Dream (as a White person) while others (people of color, immigrants, refugees, etc.) “cut” in front of you. She summarizes the feeling:

You’re a compassionate person. But now you’ve been asked to extend your sympathy to all the people who have cut in front of you. You’ve suffered a good deal yourself, but you aren’t complaining about it or asking for help, you’re proud to say. You believe in equal rights. But how about your own rights? Don’t they count too? It’s unfair.

Of course this is a narrow view not necessarily supported by facts. But: perception is reality. I’m reminded of that line:

When you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.

Or as Jamia Wilson put it:

They can't see themselves as perpetrators when they see themselves as victims.

3) They experience the shame of needing the very thing they have long disparaged. This is the paradox: the claim to honor (buying into the bootstraps myth, individualism, hard work, the American Dream) requires not accepting “handouts”; that is for “others” (and in particular, racialized others). But material conditions (neoliberalism) make it increasingly difficult to survive without support. It’s the paradox of feeling like a victim without being able to say “I’m a victim”… because the very claim to identity and honor is defined in opposition to victimhood. In an article exploring the question “Why are White Men Stockpiling Guns?” Jeremy Adam Smith concludes:

Stockpiling guns seems to be a symptom of a much deeper crisis in meaning and purpose in their lives. Taken together, these studies describe a population that is struggling to find a new story—one in which they are once again the heroes.

There is one more thing going on here, that speaks to Trump’s appeal among immigrants and communities of color. It is largely the inverse of the White victimhood narrative discussed above: it is a refusal by people deemed “historically marginalized” to accept their offered status (by the “Left”) as oppressed peoples. The common thread uniting the two is a refusal to be painted with too broad a brush: we are more than a group identity (White people objecting to “wypipo”; men to #MenAreTrash, law enforcement to “ACAB,”… and people of color to their always being defined by their race/nationality, or the assumption that their views can be understood by virtue of their group identity).

This perspective is the animating force behind the viral #Walkaway campaign, an effort started by a “former liberal” during the 2018 midterms to “walkaway” from the Democratic Party (and the “Left” more broadly). Spending time in their Facebook group over the last couple weeks was a helpful reminder to me that this is not just a problem of Whiteness, but a deeper issue that cuts to the core: it’s about belonging.

From Replacing to Re-centering; from coercion to consent

Here’s what it comes down to: can we find a way forward that includes all of us (including those historically privileged by dominant culture) AND acknowledges and takes accountability for our histories of identity-based oppression (creating conditions that enable historically marginalized people also to belong)?

To this question I would add one that I hold closely: can we do so in a way that feels in integrity with the world we ultimately want to live in?

I think the answer is yes, and it lies in emerging frameworks for democratic decision-making beyond our current hierarchical systems. I’m pretty sure I first encountered these via Miki Kashtan, consistently one of the most thoughtful practitioners of the emerging art of democratic decision-making at scale, but I couldn’t find the source when I went looking. Perhaps it’s also a synthesis of ideas I’ve encountered in holacracy, sociocracy, deep democracy, and in Marshall Rosenberg’s introduction of Nonviolent Communication as a framework (which I discussed here). The core principle that underlies everything is the invitation for each person to take responsibility for the whole: we are each concerned with creating a world where everyone belongs, where everyone’s needs matter. Nothing about us, without us. The sequencing, applicable both now and in the post-supremacist future we all long for, is as follows:

1) First, center those most impacted. We do this both to correct a historical wrong (voices and needs we have excluded), and because those most impacted are most likely to hold important pieces of the solution set. They are best-positioned to lead us all out of the mess we’re in: lived experience is often our most valuable source of expertise. Two caveats: first, no one has a monopoly on the truth; this is a starting point, not an answer. Second, group-based identities are a useful proxy indicator for who is most impacted, but they are not the whole story; we need to preserve room for individual agency and nuance. For example: while it is true that the system of mass incarceration in the U.S. disproportionately impacts Black and brown people, in any given group of people that fact alone can’t tell us who is most impacted (e.g. a White formerly incarcerated person may have more lived experience of the mass incarceration system than a Black banker).

2) Then introduce the perspectives of experts. In our mass incarceration example, this could include transformative justice practitioners, academics, policymakers: those who hold expertise in a given domain of practice. Where dominant culture has made the mistake of only valuing credentialed expertise to the exclusion of lived experience, this approach recognizes the utility of both.

3) Then include the needs of everyone affected. Miki talks about emphasizing “needs” rather than everyone’s voice. This has the benefit of once a need has been named, others who share the same need don’t need to repeat it. In our mass incarceration example, this is: everyone. As Mia Mingus reminds us:

Violence is collectively enabled, has a collective impact and requires a collective response.

There’s a lot more here (fodder for a future post) about how consent-based decision-making models can work in practice at various scales. For now, here’s my WordArt illustration of this (the limits of my graphic design ability, I fear):

What does this mean for electoral politics?

The implications are way bigger than electoral politics: the challenges we face in this moment of polycrisis (climate crisis, global pandemic, rising authoritarianism, racial violence, economic precarity, etc.) require that we look beyond the electoral cycle, and beyond our national boundaries. And yet electoral politics is a massively important lever for change… and for mitigating the ongoing harm.

A few implications come to mind:

1) Orient toward belonging… without othering. What would it look like to build a movement for the 100%? This flies in the face of conventional campaign wisdom that starts with a villain… and we need to try. The best example of this I’ve seen to-date was the wildly successful Proposition 4 campaign to restore voting rights to formerly incarcerated people in Florida (not a perfect example: it largely avoided discussing race, which is not the approach I’m interested in). The best example for a national leader is Jacinda Ardern’s recent successful campaign in New Zealand.

2) Bridging, not breaking. Bridging means being open to the possibility of transformation, and to considering multiple truths. And: a bridge must be built from both sides, with partners who themselves are open to transformation. As the Democracy Fund recently declared in renouncing its commitment to “bipartisanship”:

We are unwilling to compromise on fundamental principles of a healthy democracy.

Two things are true at the same time: we can and must critique and oppose policies and practices that are harmful; we can and must avoid demonizing those who support those policies and practices (a previous post discussed why shaming as a technique is counterproductive).

3) We need new aspirational identities — as individuals and groups. Trump is a master of this… in a dangerous way (“his was a cult of democratic aspiration.”) We don’t have great exemplars for how to live into our identities… any of us. Hence the rightful focus now on “Black boy joy” and Black girl magic” as necessary antidotes to the toxic imagery of dominant culture. But what of White people, and men? Our dominant culture examples are also deeply unappealing. I can tell you as someone who has spent most of my life looking: there are precious few examples of the kind of White men I would like our sons to aspire to be. Where are today’s Myles Hortons?

4) We need new intentionally multiracial institutions and political homes… where everyone belongs. Let me be more careful: where everyone has the potential to belong. I resonate with this language from Einhorn Collaborative:

Our commitment to building a culture of true belonging means that we are unwilling to collaborate with people and organizations whose work is grounded in the dehumanization or rejection of entire groups simply because of what they look like, whom they love, how they pray, or where they’re from.

New institutions are emerging that embody many of the values I seek… but all still turn in some important way on one aspect of our multiple identities, or offer too simple a villain. To name but two of my favorites: I love Supermajority… but it’s not for men. And the Working Families Party (and Mo in particular) but it feels too easy to lay this at the feet of wealthy people and corporations. Focusing on “them” (though obviously accurate at some level) is a too-neat typology that lets “us” off the hook for transformation.

There are a number of individuals who embody the ethos I’m trying to sketch out here, even as our institutions don’t yet reflect it: people like john powell, Bryan Stevenson, Ai-jen Poo, bell hooks, adrienne maree brown, Staci Haines, Rev. angel Kyodo williams. A big part of what has been animating my work over the last four years is trying to identify these people and find ways to bring them together, to flesh out and share ideas about what this world might look like in practice. I see the folks involved in our series of Conversations on Transformation as embodying important pieces of this emerging worldview. To that end, I’m pleased to share an invitation to an upcoming conversation I’m really excited about; I hope you will join us:

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Ugh. This is the most difficult post I’ve written yet; more content on the cutting room floor than anything previous. There’s so much here, and so many different ways to frame things. I want to be so tender with the subjects I’m weaving, and the people (all of us!) bound up in them. I want to both cut to the chase, and to share the scaffolding that has helped me in my own ongoing journey toward understanding greater nuance.

As always, by the time it feels like I’m done I’m not sure I’ve been successful in my aim, in conveying the full depth and nuance of difficult and fraught terrain. I welcome feedback about what resonates, what doesn’t, and other ideas on where we go from here. Fingers crossed (and phone banks active!) for Nov 3rd… and beyond.