Many people recognize how ‘polarized’ America has become. Perhaps you’ve read about that in my previous columns here in the SAM Magazine.
On the one hand, it’s true. Washington’s politicians are so divided that nearly nothing gets done in the U.S. Congress. On the other hand, disagreements in Americans’ political views are not new. Differences that are nowadays roadblocks have existed for decades. So, what’s changed?
Mean streets of America
Finland has remained consistently number one in happiness for seven years in a row while the United States has dropped out of even the top twenty. That’s a big difference and a major change. According to New York Times columnist and author David Brooks, as well as many others, the underlying explanation is that Americans are angrier, and America has gotten meaner.
Political discourse is less civil. Debates have become “If that’s what they say, I will say the exact opposite”. It’s not about the issues, it’s about winning and screwing the other side. But it’s not only politics that’s gotten nasty. Daily life in America is less kind than it used to be.
Statistics show it’s true
The numbers prove how tough it is. Depression, addiction, suicide, and other mental health crises are escalating exponentially. Less than half of Americans give to charity even though more than two-thirds did in the past. Civic groups and churches are dissolving. Large employers undermine unions. Nurses, teachers, police, and firefighters are changing careers because of violence against them.
Developments among young Americans are discouraging. College students favor business and entertainment courses over social sciences, humanities, and hard sciences. In 1967, 85% of them said that they were “strongly motivated to develop a meaningful philosophy of life.” By 2015, 80% said money is their primary goal. Social media traps them into broadcasting inaccurate virtual portrayals of their lives for the temporary and transactional use of others to ‘like’ their sham persona in cyberspace, regardless of how mean that’s become.
Other measures of anger are seen in statistics about distrust. They show that Americans have lost trust in their political institutions, especially their government in Washington. Unsurprisingly, Americans have also lost trust in each other. Two generations ago, in research that asked people: “Do you trust the people around you?” 60% said they were generally trustworthy. That’s down to 30% and even lower among younger people.
Angry and distrustful Americans are the new normal. It seems like that’s a bad thing, but is it?
Can’t we all just get along?
A typical response is to urge everyone to chill out and to choose words that are not so harsh. Billboards and handmade signs say ‘Be Kind’ and ‘Empathy’. Those platitudes infuriate me. Not everything can be fixed by telling everyone to play nice. Many Americans are fully justified in their anger and in some of their meanness too, no matter how polarizing it may be. For example:
When your boss’s salary is 5 or 10 times more than yours and the company pays its CEO 1000 times more than employees who do the real work, no one should be told to shut up and sit down or be fired. They should be livid.
When women are denied the opportunity to terminate pregnancies with legal abortions (even when they are pregnant as the result of rape by a stranger) there’s no requirement that they remain calm and polite. They can be as furious as they feel.
When local and state governments take away their rights to vote and then deny permits for citizens to protest because of noise restrictions, a proper response is vehement and noisy outrage.
When the pro-gun lobby blocks any meaningful government response to mass shootings in schools, restaurants, and grocery stores, it’s ridiculous to complain that victims’ families sound so irate when they demand more action than prayers.
These are genuine scenarios in the daily lives of Americans. They feel angry and sound furious for very good reasons. As Harvard professor Robert Putnam said about distrust, Americans are distrustful of the people around them because people around them have been untrustworthy. It’s not about their perception; it’s about reality. The anger that Americans feel is real and much of it is appropriate.
Anger in America won’t vanish by asking Americans to be nicer…and it shouldn’t
It requires real institutional changes instead. The vast gaps in America’s wealth must be reduced by a tax system that no longer favors the ultra-rich. Civil rights need to be reinforced to protect racial minorities, women, the poor, and the working class rather than dismantled to silence their voices.
Religious and ethnic differences must not be ignored by court decisions that impose white men’s morality cloaked in sanitized explanations of history that never existed. Judges who rule with those biases must be identified, exposed, and replaced. Absurdly one-sided pro-gun influence over politicians must be eliminated. The list goes on.
Don’t tell me or anyone else to be nice and to silently ignore circumstances that need to change. Justifiable anger is good and necessary. Discomfort is a prerequisite for change. It’s a strong force to transform America into the nation it was created to be. It’s not wrong to be angry when it’s the right thing to do.
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Tom A. Lippo is a Finnish-speaking American lawyer. Educated at Yale, the University of Jyväskylä and Stanford Law School, he is the founder of FACT LAW, an international law firm established in 1985. FACT is the first law firm with offices in both Finland and the United States. Tom has been a lawyer in Washington, DC based on Capitol Hill for over 40 years.
