I am occasionally in the position to give dating advice. I don't know why that is because, at my age, the only dating I do is decrepidating. And I do that quite well. But one piece of advice I always give is that when choosing to date a particular person, if that person does not freely admit to having faults and sins, then don't date them. Why? It is because once you are in a committed relationship, that person's failure to admit to having faults and sins will morph into making you one of their scapegoats. The person who refuses to admit to fauls and sins has proclaimed themselves to be perfect.
I grew up in a home where one of the family members was perfect because that person was too insecure to admit to having faults and sins. And therefore, some of the other members of my family served as scapegoats for that perfect person. Though I was not a recipient of those attacks, those attacks did have a significantly negative effect on myself.
And so perhaps, just perhaps, we should apply that same rule to the people we elect. Why? It is for the same reason. When things go wrong, some of our politicians will always find whipping boys to blame instead of admitting to being wrong. We have to live with scapegoating others, or even perhaps ourselves, for at least their first term. And since most incumbants are continually reelected, we usually have to live with that abuse much longer than a person's single term.
The reluctance of family member to admit faults and sins was only part of what made my home life back then dysfunctional. But we should note, that trait alone can easily make any home dysfunctional. And so now let's return to the criteria we using in voting for candidates.
Currently, we have a President who is too insecure to admit to doing something wrong or even making mistakes. And many of us have moments or situations in which we also feel insecure. So we should empathize with the President regarding that without condoning how he behaves. Because the President is scapegoating particular people and groups and even nations with his criticisms and worse, our nation has either become dysfunctional or is getting more dysfunctional. Here I am not saying that our democracy has become dysfunctional, the whole nation is.
That doesn't mean that the President is always wrong when he criticizes others, but it does mean that he is not always right as well. And getting some of his most ardent followers to admit that he can be wrong is harder than for the Conclave to elect a conservative Protestant to be Pope.
At this point, we can now talk about how the whole nation has become dysfunctional. For the President is now reflecting what has become of America. In a past article, I talked about those who arrogantly believe that they have everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them. What I am talking about now is the flip side of that coin. When we always blame others for the failures that our side has caused, we are proclaiming that our side is never wrong. We are proclaiming that our side is perfect. And we see that kind of approach being taken by some MAGA followers, some progressives, religiously consesrvative Christians with hubris, the oligarchy, to name a few. And so when one's side is wrong, one abuses everyone by either gaslighting or scapegoating others. And just as it is dysfunctional when a family member portrays themselves as perfect, it is even worse when a whole nation is divided by such behavior.
While the President likes to brag about how "hot" our nation has become under his leadership, the world looks at us in the same way that other members of a family look at the member who always blames others for their mistakes. Of course our nation isn't the only nation that practices such scapegoating. But there might be an interesting correlation here. The nations whose leaders scapegoat the most are the nations that are currently practicing the most physical violence against others. And whether one is exhibiting external or internal violence, with the latter being expressed by words, the resulting violence, along with the gaslighting, is abusive to all victims as well as all who have to see or listen.
Certainly perfect people, regardless of the location or context, can be angering. But if we are going to reach them, it is counterproductive to respond to them with anger because that will all too easily trigger their insecurities and make them defensive. We need to find ways to peacefully challenging their denial of faults and sins. I know that some will read those words and claim that I am singing, To Dream The Imp-ossible Dream. And that might be the case. But is it better to only let perfect people own their insecurities and abusive defensiveness, or is it better to act like perfect people ourselves when challenging them? Who wins if we choose the latter?
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