Democracy requires tolerant discourse

In the 2006 Ralph Nader documentary An Unreasonable Man, Village Voice journalist James Ridgeway commented on the Democrat Party and its coordinated attacks on the consumer rights legend who'd mounted an independent presidential bid.

"They're the meanest bunch of motherfuckers I've ever come across," said Ridgeway, of the Democrats.

I volunteered for Nader's 2000 Green Party presidential campaign. And I served as paid Iowa Coordinator for his 2004 bid. 

For decades previous, I had been a Democrat, as are many in my family. All those years, as I moved from Democrat to Green to independent (where I still am, today), no one in my family said a discouraging word.

All that changed, when in 2017 I became a Trump supporter. Suddenly, intolerant relatives who knew better assailed me as somehow bigoted -- a false, despicable allegation they knew to be untrue, and one often hurled tactically and without foundation at Trump backers.

And my partisan allegiance, as it had shifted over decades, was misrepresented as frivolous. In actuality, of course, open-mindedness, due consideration of contrasting perspectives, and philosophical evolution are positive, healthy signs. 

That cannot be said of intellectual timidity and stagnancy.

My experience is not remarkable. It represents an all-too common political bigotry Trump supporters face, and a breakdown in popular standards of discourse. 

That traditional American principles are endure, and open democratic government thrive, tolerance and civility -- not prejudice and character assassination of political adversaries -- must again become the norm.


copyright © David Charles Larson