What does it cost to be “right?”
Growing up in America, you are told that if you have a voice, you can make that voice heard. One can use their voice to get a point across, to help right the wrongs of the world or even to make the world a better place. At some point in the past few years, making your voice heard has turned into “proving you are right, at all costs, relentlessly and never admitting defeat.”
Politically, this country is going through the emotional equivalent of a couple about to get a divorce. We really loved each other once upon a beautiful time, but our differences have become irreconcilable and one side of the house is perpetually fighting with the other in an attempt to prove they’re right. No one’s really all that happy and both sides are continuously desperate to get their point across at all costs. Someone must emerge from the situation victorious and will most likely do or say whatever they suppose they need to in order to win. The people of this country are sleeping in separate rooms in the same house because no matter what side you are on, you must be right.
President Trump’s reaction to his election win was akin to having Brazil win the World Cup then its residents proceeding to burn Sao Paulo to the ground in celebration. Like him or not, Trump has to be one of the sorest winners in American history. It wasn’t enough for him to win; he had to have the biggest win – creating statistics and claims of illegal votes to make his win seem even more monumental than it actually was. Because our president tweets as frequently and cavalierly as a lovelorn tween, the world is also prone to his claims of “fake news” (news that most likely doesn’t cast the best light on his actions and he disagrees with, thereby making it not factual news.) Never in the American presidency has there been a man who has needed to prove that he is right, at all costs, more than Donald Trump – but at what cost to us? He delegitimizes the press with his continuous claims that they are “fake,” he tarnishes the reputation of former President Obama with his false claim of wire-tapping and makes claims of other countries that simply aren’t true. (Hey Sweden!) This piece is not to call into question our current President’s scruples or lack thereof but the lengths to which people will go to prove they are right. I think it’s an accurate assumption (although I may be off) that Trump has spent equal time trying to pass new legislation and meeting with foreign dignitaries as he has spent trying to prove he is right, but to what end? Trump supporters have a tendency to believe what he says is fact regardless of the actual facts and non-Trump supports don’t believe a word he says whether it’s truth or fiction. Does our President’s continuous plight to prove he is right and everyone else is wrong make him happy? Given his behavior, I would say, it hasn’t.
On the other hand, you have the Democrats, still reeling from a shocking and disappointing loss in November and looking for someone to point the finger at. There are facts and fiction on this side as well, but everyone has a theory and everyone’s theory is right and will be defended at all costs. Instead of uniting as a party and forging ahead to look at midterm elections in 2018 or looking further into Russia’s tampering with the election we are still debating whether or not Hillary Clinton was a good enough candidate to beat Trump. The facts are the facts here as well. Bernie Sanders, as great a man as he is, lost the Democratic nomination and Hillary Clinton won (and also won the popular vote by nearly 3 million against Trump in the general election.) It is my firm belief that Hillary Clinton was one of the most qualified candidates to run for the Presidency and to be fair, in the summer of 2016, it looked like anyone including a trained monkey would have beat Trump in the general election. However, the finger pointing as to why the Democrats lost and whose fault it is has only gained in momentum in 2017. “It was the Bernie voters,” “It was the third party voters, “it was the people who didn’t vote.” It’s most likely a combination of all three; however there is factual evidence that the Russians played a very serious role in our election, and yet Democrats continue the infighting in an attempt to prove they’re “right.” Bernie Sanders never ran against Donald Trump and there is no proof that he would have been a better candidate or could have won because it’s hypothetical and a moot point. We can all bicker about what might have been but becoming a Facebook troll in order to prove your point is not only a waste of time, it’s a fruitless effort as most people have made up their mind on the topic. The only reason to continue to argument is to be “right” and no one can be right or wrong regarding a situation that never occurred. Sanders never ran against Trump. It didn’t happen; it’s not going to happen. If the people who continuously wrote books and articles about how Bernie Sanders could have hypothetically won an election he was never in focused their energy on educating people about the Russian hack investigation, the trouble in Syria or midterm elections, we may be able to accomplish something in the future. But again, we must all be “right.” And for the record, “Hillary would have been just as bad” is not applicable in this situation either (nor is at a fair or logical point, unless the person using this statement can predict what hasn’t happened) as it is unfortunately something we may never find out and does not make the person saying this statement “right” in any way.
So we take to Facebook and other forms or social media to prove that we are right, share articles that support our view and engage in the back and forth of Facebook wars to get our point across. Do we feel particularly good once we “win” or are our lives changed once we come out of an argument the victor? Or does it just perpetuate more fights and more Facebook wars in a never ending cycle of engagements with acquaintances to prove a point? What do we benefit from being right? And when do we, if ever, admit defeat? I am a huge fan of admitting when I am wrong and learning from that experience but it seems as though these days, we’ve become a bunch of finger-pointers. Why can’t we simply admit defeat, or in our President’s case, take winning in stride and move on? Does the moral victory of being “right” help you sleep better at night or are our egos too big to admit defeat?
Divorce is very final and for a country that seems to be on the brink of it, we are in a very delicate situation. Most divorces are very bitter battles that last for months, even years. Both sides hurl accusations at the other. Skeletons of the past are revealed and nitpicked beyond belief in an attempt to prove one side is right and one side is wrong. However, once the divorce is final and all is said and done, does anyone really win? Belongings, children and pets are separated but nothing is ever the same. There is always that doubt of “maybe I should have just given him that family heirloom back” or “maybe she deserved equal custody as well.” After fighting to prove that you are right at the expense of someone else, does one party feel better than the other because they won? What does it actually cost to be “right” in the end? In the case of the divorce proceedings of America, does it cost the entire nation knowing you were right and they were wrong at the expense of the good of the country? If so, point taken. You’re all right. You’re all pretty. And you’ve all won.