by Bob Lannan
My son is a starting offensive lineman on the varsity football team of Gonzaga College High School, in Washington, D.C. That means that this Saturday, I and most of the rest of my family found ourselves in the bleachers for an away game at Loyola Blakefield High School, in Baltimore County, Maryland. As always, between the coin toss and the kickoff, everyone stood for the National Anthem. However, the mood in the bleachers was different this time than it had been a week before. Then, nearly everyone sang. This time, I heard no one repeating the lyrics written by Fransis Scott Key only a few miles from where we stood. That was probably because the flag to which we turned our gazes flew at half-mast, a stark reminder of the assassination of Charlie Kirk three days earlier.
As the music played, it occurred to me that the same National Anthem was playing that weekend at thousands of high school football games across the country, in communities as diverse as lower Manhattan and Nome, Alaska. For diversity of opinion, I needed to look no further than the other parents surrounding me . We American Catholics are a politically diverse lot; our vote is split nearly every Election Day.
Kirk’s was the latest in a series of at least five political assassinations and assassination attempts in the United States in little more than a year. This is the worst effect of a political climate more heated and fraught with division than any other I have experienced. I’m sure I wasn’t the only parent this weekend who, upon hearing the Star Spangled Banner, wondered whether and how we might overcome this period to form a more perfect Union for our children on the playing fields.
The game I watched was low-scoring and defensive, which made it easier to continue this line of thought while watching it. I thought of a few changes we can demand of ourselves and our political leaders:
Condemn violence. The most obvious of these is to condemn political violence in no uncertain terms. Most of our political leaders on both sides of the aisle have done so this week. While obvious and expected as a minimum, these condemnations are important. We can never allow political violence to feel normal or expected.
“No ad hominem!” James Martin, S.J. occasionally uses these words to end of his social media posts addressing social and political issues, to remind his readers to address their comments to ideas—not the people who advance them. Reading Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s new book this week, I was reminded of a famous quote by her mentor Justice Antonin Scalia: “I attack ideas. I don’t attack people. And some very good people have some very bad ideas. And if you can’t separate the two, you gotta get another day job.” I believe this advice is as good for active citizens as it is for government officials and professional political commentators.
Tone down the rhetoric. Hyperbole is great for inducing applause at political rallies, and undoubtedly motivates votes and political contributions. However, it is rarely intellectually honest. One word I find overused today is “genocide.” Similarly, comparisons of policies advanced by the two major political parties to fascism or communism are usually not warranted.
Advice from a Saint. The name above the scoreboard at my son’s game—Loyola—reminded me of another insight we would do well to consider. In his Spiritual Exercises, St. Ignatius advised his followers to be “more ready to put a good interpretation on another’s statement than to condemn it as false.” To expand on this principle, even if one concludes that a statement made by one’s political opponent is false, one should apply the best possible interpretation to that statement when further assessing it. This is particularly important when a person speaks extemporaneously. We all expect our own statements to be considered in context, with a fair interpretation of any ambiguity and a presumption of good will. We should extend this courtesy to others as well. Of course, in the political arena, more points are won by doing just the opposite. If a candidate can spin an opponent’s statement to make it seem as extreme as possible, this will steer more votes in the candidate’s favor. It would be naïve to expect otherwise from opposing candidates during an election season. However, we can expect better of ourselves when assessing statements made by others, including public figures and our friends and neighbors. I think if we do so, we will find that most of the general population is less divided than the political classes.
This last point raises the question of whether our nation is adequately represented by those who run its government. I believe it is not. Our system of primary elections ensures that nearly every general election is a contest between one candidate significantly to the left of most of the electorate and another significantly to the right. For the U.S. House of Representatives, gerrymandered districts predetermine the outcome of most general elections. In general presidential elections, an outdated Electoral College effectively disenfranchises all but those lucky enough to live in about seven swings states. But addressing those problems will have to await another slow football game, and another post.
My son’s team won the game 22-0. Neither offense played its best game. The weather was warm. Maybe when it cools down this fall, they’ll be better able to move the ball forward.