If our country’s political problems were described as an illness and we turned to pundits for treatment, our mass diagnosis would likely be ideological isolation.
Whether you prefer to imagine yourself in a bubble or an echo chamber, the popular idea among those interested in politics is to suggest that the left and the right don’t communicate as often, as openly or as respectfully as they should.
Few examples of an attempt at such communication have been received better than The Daily Show’s Trevor Noah when he interviewed conservative commentator Tomi Lahren on Wednesday, and yet the laudatory responses to the interview are disappointing.
Today’s Editorial Board addresses the interview’s implications for the general public and white nationalism, but as an English student, I also took interest in Noah and Lahren’s language.
I argued in a previous column that we could not exempt ourselves from difficult political conversations, but I did not imagine at the time that the trend of bubble-popping would become so dangerously encouraging of complacency. Now, if you can manage to agree to disagree, you’ve done your job. Your work is finished.
Is that really where we stand? Do we wish to take on no greater challenge than to say, “I think you’re wrong, but I won’t hate you for it,” and move on?
Neither Noah nor Lahren actually hold public office, and most of their audience members don’t either. That doesn’t mean they can’t affect the political process. If we relied solely on our politicians to provide solutions, we would be doing ourselves a disservice.
Part of what sets the standard for successful conversations so low is that meetings of political opponents rarely sustain the dignity necessary for each side to take the other seriously. Though Lahren is frequently angry and impertinent in her videos, she is never disrespectful to Noah, saying of the general public:
“I wish that we could disagree with each other without thinking that we are bad people or ill-intentioned folks.”
These can be hard words to accept from a woman famed for comparing Black Lives Matter to the KKK, or dismissing liberals as “intellectually dishonest snowflakes.”
And yet she emerges from the ideological shelter of her online show with comparative grace, matching Noah’s civility rather using her trademark taunts.
To see this change is evidence of the power of language. That this particular episode of the Daily Show is primed to become canon for the discourse of decency reminds us just how much our words can matter.
“Words, to me, are far less egregious than actions,” Lahren said. This statement is unacceptable, at least not without qualification.
People commit egregious actions when they feel emboldened or justified by words. Genuinely understanding the problems we face requires acknowledging that words and actions are mutually complicit in any evils that exist.
Awareness of the power our words carry should push us not only to choose them carefully but also to use those words to create solutions. It’s not enough to play nice for 26 minutes on a talk show interview only to reach an impasse at the end. We have to start finding a way forward together.
mareklei@umail.iu.edu
