Don’t Call Me Hitler

I’ve been debating with myself whether incidents like this are isolated or not. Coupled with things like this, I’m tempted to say they’re not.

And yet I’ve seen similar equations made from the other side of the debate (for example) and don’t see it as a reflection on the entirety of the left.

I started out my voting life as a registered Republican, but quickly drifted towards Democrats (with a brief stop in Naderland that I’m almost ashamed to admit). A ripe core of justice plus a snowball of experiences landed me squarely on the Democratic side of the ticket after just four years of personal enfranchisement. For the last six years, that position has only become more firm.

So it’s easy for me to dehumanize the other side, to scoff at each little incident as if it is proof of their evilness.

Yet I don’t believe in evil. Not, at least, in an all-encompassing evil that wears the body of a human like a bodysnatcher. I believe the most common evil to be the evil of good intentions.

But a philosophy of accidental evil is hard to reconcile with my human desire to demonize those that I oppose. To succumb to that tribalistic instinct is to become the very thing that I purport to despise. To indulge in attaching Nazi nametags is to be as brutal as a Nazi in denying the humanity of the people on whom I place the blame. And to lay blame at the feet of individuals who are no more knowledgeable nor ignorant than I am about every last thing in the world is to point fingers at my own reflection.

So I halt the cycle as best I can by noting that

Local Republican Party officials call the incident unacceptable, saying it taints Jackson’s ability to appear unbiased in administering this year’s election.

I believe that my own criticism, had I been a Republican or the offender been a Democrat, would be much the same thing.