Election Postmortem: Did Democrats Lose Because They Are Elite? Should We Speak The Truth In Love If It Annoys People?

‘Tis the season of  recrimination. Why did Harris and the Democrats lose? What went wrong?

Opinions are flying; but what I read most often is that the Democrats are all elites who look down on “the rest of us.”

“They stand around scolding people for lack of understanding and concern for the environment, reproductive and gender rights, the plight of refugees, and even their own health. We can’t even tell crude jokes or eat greasy hamburgers now without feeling inferior. Now thes liberals want to take away our McDonalds, our guns, and our right not to vaccinate our kids, and we hate them for it!”

For one thing, I don’t know who the “elite” are. Elite is such a handy pejorative word. When we like a rich guy he is wealthy and creative. When we despise him he is elite. The professor who taught us well is smart. When we hate him he is elite. When a celebrity notices us and we sing her sons, she is a warm and generous genius. If she doesn’t bother to sign our program, she is a snob—she must be elite.

Yet, the plain truth is, condescension itself does hurt.

Today I was chatting (deeply) with my favorite philosopher furnace man. The subject turned to the shared sense of trust and trustworthiness that is so essential for society, and I mentioned a favorite author of mine who has written four books on trust as a key concept in the Bible. My philosopher friend was honest and told me that when I added that the first several of those books wouldn’t be for him because they were so heavily academic, he felt offended. He said it angers him when people talk down about the “uneducated workingman.” When I tried to explain that this author’s first volumes were on the minutiae of the history of the usage of Hebrew, Greek, and Lati vocabulary, he seemed to understand a bit more. When I told him, also honestly, that I considered him my favorite philosopher furnace guy, I think he knew how much I valued his intelligence. But I had learned another lesson about how condescension hurts.

Later today I watched a beautiful documentary on life on Scottish islands. One of those islands has been uninhabited for many decades. For many years before it was abandoned altogether only one family lived there, making money from lobster fishing, livestock, and the export of slate. One day an outsider came by unannounced, pretending to be a simple tourist. He asked questions of the mother, took a few photographs, and disappeared. Weeks later the family saw a major article in a mainland newspaper calling the woman the lonely and silent matriarch of a family of strange hermits. The mother and entire family were aghast, embarrassed…even humiliated.

For the journalist who ran that article, that woman who showed him hospitality was exotic. She was, in fact, creative, industrious, loving, and very happy and well adjusted to a island life. She knew the harsh side of harsh weather and isolation. She also knew its wondrous side. She loved and was loved. But because the journalist didn’t understand, she was an exotic—a hermit and nothing other than peculiar.  

So, condescension is hurtful.  But there are other sides to condescension.

One I can think of is that our experience of condescension may be more about us and less about the other. We may be thinking it is a hole in the character of the other when it may be a hole in our own. So, when we feel the victim of condescension, when we feel resentment, it may be good for us to let ourselves consider that we ourselves have something to learn, and something to even repent of.

Perhaps Democrats should now give a thought about their language or their ways; but perhaps they should not completely fear that they are making people feel dumb and guilty.

And perhaps when we feel that resentment ourselves, we should grow a thicker skin.

No one likes to feel dumb or guilty, but it is part of growing up. I feel twinges of annoyance and even anger when my wife suggests that I should stop cursing about problems with computer software and take deep breaths instead. I feel very annoyed when she suggests I save some of my meal for later rather than “clean my plate” like mother scolded when I was a growing kid. I don’t like to be told things I know are healthy or good for me. I do lose my temper, especially when my wife is the only one around to hear it. And I do often eat way too much.

So too, countless thousands of times I have felt twinges of annoyance and anger when I’ve been reminded of how blacks have suffered slavery and red-lining and job discrimination, and how we Americans consume 16 times as much as the average human being on earth. Reminders that I am privileged and others are suffering bother me. But they are right. I don’t want to hear it, but I’m a better man when I put aside my annoyance, consider, sort out what’s helpful and what’s not, and learn.

I get it. Democrats lost, and there are things they could do better. Making people feel dumb or guilty or inferior should never, ever be a goal. Talking down to anyone and not taking the time to treasure their gifts is condescension, whether it is intended or not--and it always hurts.

But sometimes we make people resent us simply because we speak the truth about race, social justice, environment, health, etc.

When we do talk we should always talk with and not at. When we point out shortfalls, mistakes, and outright sins we should always point the finger at ourselves as well as our society. But even when we do it right, some will be offended. Some will resent the hell out of us. But though the truth hurts, we have to keep living in it.

So the advice of the Letter to the Ephesians has always been golden: “Speaking the truth in love we must grow up in every way, into him who is the head, into Christ.”