In his novel “Love In The Time of Cholera” Gabriel Garcia Marquez, unfolds a story of long and unrequited love that takes place in a time people are tested by the fear and devastation of a cholera epidemic. I find ourselves to be in a time reason and emotion cannot come together in this time of political turmoil. Unlike Marquez’s novel in which the unrequited lover finally finds reciprocal love, I have no way to know how our story, the story of political emotions and reason, will end.
I have written before about the elephant and the rider. The elephant is our raw emotions and genetic predispositions that move us in a given direction. The rider is our reason that tries to make sense of our emotions and balance them with rational analysis of the facts. In our state as political animals, we seem to be driven much more by emotions than reason these days. We know who is responsible for this: the china buster who somehow made it inside the china store. How do you react and rationalize the fact that a china buster is in the china store smashing everything with resolute glee? *
First, we all react with surprise that the china buster made it to the china store. A lot of us react with exuberance and happiness while many others react with fear and anger – china busters are not supposed to be in a china store. But before we have time to sort out and rationalize on these initial emotions, the surprise guest smashes one china piece after another triggering more emotional turmoil at a rate any resort to reason has no time to materialize or replace the emotions as a basis for debate.
Some of us feel happy the china buster is in the china store because some pieces scare us and we would feel relieved without them in the store. If you are a white conservative American your fear is the receding whiteness of the demographic make-up of America. Your reason should tell you, though, there is nothing anyone can do to reverse this but somehow you feel better if you are told this is possible. Your fear is a future American culture that is supposedly infiltrated by the culture of “others”. Your reason should tell you America has managed to absorb and synthesize cultures and always find the joy of life in a melting pot of cuisines and fashions, music tunes and dances, cinema and theater, pop art and high literature. Your fear is that scientific advances threaten the validity of untested beliefs grounded only in faith. Your reason should tell you faith should primarily fulfill your spiritual needs, not to stake out explanations as to how nature works.
If you are a Congressional Republican you are dismayed to see a china buster in the china store instead of one of your trusted antique dealers, but you are awestruck by how enthusiastically your party supporters relish the havoc, so you just play along. Your reason should tell you demographic trends will not add to this party crowd, but fear you may lose it holds you back from inviting in new groups. Your reason would tell you that the china buster, being just that, has no taste for values, conservative or liberal, but for fear of being primaried you betray your conservative roots.
If you are a working-class or rural American you fear educated elites belittle your sense of nationalism, your blue color life style, and your love for guns so you put your faith in politicians who keep telling you your economic advancement begins with their own enrichment (the trickle-down theory). Your reason should tell you that being the happy warrior of culture wars will hardly relieve you from social stagnation, insecure finances, inadequate education, and the scourge of opioids.
If you are an Evangelical, you fear atheists and secularists, so you like the china buster to smash their precious china pieces. Your reason should tell you that when you shred the constitutional separation of church and state your religious rights are also at risk but your fear is too strong to contemplate the wisdom of the first amendment. You know that besides lacking a taste for values, the china buster doesn’t care much about ethics but again your fear pushes this thought away. Your reason should remind you, though, that Jesus admonished “For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world but forfeits his soul?”
If you are a liberal your fear is the emergence of voices of racial hate, white supremacy and ethno-nationalism that could bring us back to the dark days of history. But instead of debating and countering such speech with the compelling and convincing arguments you should have, you attempt to push it out of the public space forgetting your motto “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” You fear the erosion of reproductive, gender, sexual orientation and voting rights, but instead of focusing the minds of moderate and liberal voters on winning the Senate, you fight the battles when the “enemy” is already inside. Because you fear extreme conservative ideology you close your mind to thoughtful and informed conservative thinkers. Your inclination for healthy skepticism and balanced arguments should have reminded you that you need them as much as they need you.
If you are a Congressional Democrat your fear is the china buster, loose as he is, could break your beloved china pieces, but then you weigh the severity of your restraining him against the reaction of voters and what that might do to your electoral prospects. Your reason should tell you that accusing your opponents of political calculation for not reigning in the china buster sounds hollow if you also condition your doing this on calculations of your own. In the middle of so much mayhem, your reason cannot tell you which china pieces to save and which to let go.
By now, we realize the china smashing has gone too far. To preserve some common heirlooms still left, the save-the-store crowd has decided to bring in the conservation squad. Will finally emotion and reason find each other? Or, as in Marquez’s story, each crowd will tell the captain of its riverboat to sail on and on up the river forever as a way to escape reality.
* The “china buster in the china store” metaphor is inspired by “horse in the hospital” in the standup comedy show Kid Gorgeous of John Mulaney that streams on Netflix.
Let's Reason 
Thank you, George, your analysis is pitch perfect. It is timely advice to all of us living in the current world of the “china buster.” Divisiveness, and the threat of violence, are two of his tactics, along with the ubiquitous “fake news.” It will only truly end if we all pull together for the common good. Also, with some exceptions, there is a lack of people in public life today who exhibit strong moral leadership – think FDR and the New Deal. He brought the country together with his fireside chats and thus advanced a progressive agenda which promoted the interests of ordinary working Americans. There is still more which unites us than divides us, I believe.
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