President Trump, Bob Putnam and Purple People
“Purple People come in every color you can dream up …”
Most of us felt that it was likely, if not inevitable. Why? Because you can cut the tension in our country with a knife, and we know how we can respond when the tension is too much to handle. Now multiply that by 333 million Americans, some of whom are struggling with mental illness, due in part to isolation and radicalization encouraged through rabbit hole social media, and we get an assassination attempt.
Photo by Library of Congress on Unsplash
Bottom line: both "sides" have made the other "the enemy" of America. We heard little introspection that one's own "side" has contributed to the tension. Still, there was some acknowledgement that we need to dial down our divisive rhetoric. President Trump acknowledged our political division and expressed that he wanted to “try to unite our country,” through his speech during the upcoming Republican National Convention this week. On Sunday, President Biden, in an address from the Oval Office, reiterated that “we cannot, we must not” go down the road of political violence and called on Americans to “take a step back.”.
Over the years, there have been many, many voices calling on us to tone down our rhetoric, and to remind ourselves that despite our differences, we are Americans and we can find ways forward. As we have written, Americans have more in common than we don’t, and we want word pictures that show we can pursue our common interests and share flourishing together despite our differences.
““I’m not supposed to be here, I’m supposed to be dead,” Trump told the New York Post on Sunday. “By luck or by God, many people are saying it’s by God, I’m still here”
And we thank God, too, that he is still here, and pray for the other victims and their families of the shooting. Theologically, we at Clapham believe that God is the God of “second” chances, that we are being given a second chance to pursue unity, but that it will take us becoming a little more purple, at least temperamentally, to take advantage of it.
In Kristen Bell and Benjamin Hart’s children’s book The World Needs More Purple People, the authors invite young readers to ask questions (become empathetic), laugh (see our blog post on laughter), use your voice (with respect), work hard (with others) and be yourself. They don’t suggest that you change who you are or your beliefs, in fact quite the opposite, but just that you treat others the way you would like to be treated.
Sound familiar? Jesus said in Mark 12:30-21: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”
This is the key to “dialing it back” and rebuilding social capital and the social fabric needed for a healthy democracy (see The Clapham Group’s Social Capital Campaign). The Golden Rule may sound quaint and old fashioned, but it is the one rule that is embraced by every culture, every faith and throughout time. And society inculcates the Rule and its associated values through relationships embodied in institutions, including faith-based, family and civil society.
In a providentially timed interview with Robert Putnam released on the day of President Trump’s shooting, sociologist and author Robert Putnam said “loner males, boys especially, were getting in trouble and causing the country trouble. And nowadays it’s exactly those loner males, young loner males who are drawn to white nationalism and violence. So if I were talking to the president, either president, and said: How do we solve this problem of white nationalism and violence and terrorism in America? We have to begin early in life, and that means thinking of new ways — not the Boy Scouts or whatever. But what did the Boy Scouts and those other groups do that was so neat? They combined something that was fun — camping or whatever else Boy Scouts did — with moral indoctrination. “A Scout is trustworthy, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful” — I could do this once.”
Putnam has a documentary out now called Join or Die about the critical importance of the voluntary association sector where we develop the character traits to become purple people. Clapham is committed to “Pursuing Common Cause, Uncovering Common Ground, Advancing the Common Good." We encourage you to see Putnam’s documentary, and we will continue to work on “narrative shift” through storytelling such as films like Elephant in the Room and the Marblehead series.
The only way we can reduce the impact of extreme voices that vilify the other is to drown them out with voices that edify one another, even when we inevitably disagree.