While searching for an image to accompany this article on ‘the political middle ground’, I came across many images that portrayed a person or object as caught in the middle between a opposing Democrat and republican forces. At other times in our country’s history I might even agree that those images were accurate in their depiction of an electorate woefully caught in the crosshairs between competing ideologies.
That’s not the case anymore.
What we have been experiencing for more years than I care to stomach is one group of people asking for rights & recognition, and the other side saying “No” with accompanying legislation.
It’s one group of people asking not to be killed indiscriminately by police due to racial bias, and the other side finding every way to justify the deaths while providing more police funding.
It’s one group of people trying desperately to keep their healthcare, and the other side repeatedly trying to rip it away with nothing in its’ place because it was enacted by a Black POTUS.
It’s one group of people trying to make it easier for every eligible American to vote (for the sake of our democracy), and the other side literally saying “Not everyone (Black and Brown people) deserves to vote” followed by legislation to stop voting.
Where is the middle ground in any of these instances???
I’ve had more than one person tell me, “I wish both sides would just talk to one another and find middle ground”. I tend to let those conversations go without confrontation because, honestly, where is the middle ground in any of the scenarios mentioned above? Or the middle ground in the myriad of other examples I could have also mentioned, such as the ‘family separation’ policy of the previous administration.
Where is the middle ground? There is no middle ground!
These issues aren’t theoretical, like the past arguments between Democrats and republicans about taxes and government spending. These are issues of life and death; issues where the idea of a middle ground is an absolutely ridiculous outcome that borders on the immoral.
Enacting ‘religious freedom’ legislation that allows medical personnel to refuse treatment to anyone in the LGBTQ community, or their families, is unacceptable. Telling Black people to accept the unacceptable deaths of their brothers and sisters is also unacceptable. And non-negotiable.
[Author’s Note: To this day, the most inane, asinine, and unacceptable response I received to the sharing of my anguish after the deaths of Arbery-Taylor-Floyd is the advice I got to do a police ride-along so that I could have a better understanding of what they go through. 😒 ]
Attempting to repeal and kill the Affordable Care Act, the only healthcare resource for millions of Americans, is an unacceptable political game that would certainly lead to avoidable deaths and misery. And if anyone can tell me how it’s acceptable that legislation has been passed that makes it illegal to offer water to people standing in long lines to vote, then this country is a lost cause.
I’m all for practicality, and avoidance of any extreme. But when the argument is one of ‘accepting the morally unacceptable’ just to proclaim a winning compromise, the ideal of America is done.
And we’re almost there.