There was recently an election in a town close to my own in which the winning strategy was, as has become more and more common, mudslinging. There were candidates who refused to participate in this practice, and they lost. The ones who won were those who effectively insulted and put down (often with untruths) those they were running against. Those same people had no real campaign. They didn't comment on issues, they never made it clear where they stood on things or what they would do once elected. They ran, and won, an entire campaign based on how horribly they could vilify those they were running against.
Of course, this is not an isolated event. More and more this is how our elections are won. Those who are, frankly, better humans, people who are kinder and more compassionate, those who are more truthful and have a great deal more integrity, they lose on a regular basis. They lose because they will not participate in that kind of vicious destruction of others. They lose because they choose not to engage in dirty tactics and childish behavior. They instead choose to be open and honest and to speak about the actual issues in the campaign rather than focusing on character assassination, and, more often than not, this is not a winning strategy.
I tend to believe that they are assuming, wrongly, that the general public will see through the mudslinging. They assume, as thoughtful people often do, that people would know and think about the fact that those who sling mud do so because they have nothing real to say. It is also true, as I have said again and again, that those condemning others are mostly condemning, in the others, what is actually true about themselves. When we think about this, we know this to be true. I think about the election in which the person running kept calling his opposing candidate a liar. The name caller turned out to be a pathological liar, who was actually incapable of telling the truth. He took his own very serious character flaw and used it to condemn the other. I remember another election where the person keep calling his opposing candidate "gay"(or actually, he used a much more derogatory term, but same condemnation). That name caller was caught in a same-sex liaison after he was elected. I could go on and on. We attack in the other what we cannot overcome in ourselves. And, as an election strategy, this seems to be, unfortunately, very effective.
Those who are compassionate and intelligent tend to believe that others will see through the mudslinging, character-assassination tactics.
Sadly, too often, they don't.
In the movie The American President, a character attack and mudslinging campaign was waged on the president who was up for reelection. His opposing candidate used it as his sole strategy to try to win the presidential election. And at first the president would not engage in it. He wouldn't even respond to the attacks. He wouldn't respond because he had more integrity than that. He knew that by participating in a mudslinging, character-attack campaign, the opponent was not talking about what really mattered: about the issues in the campaign, about the positions that each candidate held. He knew that by engaging in a mudslinging campaign, his opponent was acting like a child, trying to gain power by stepping on, hurting, judging someone else and inviting others to join him in his attack. None the less, the president finally came to a point where he realized he at least had to respond to the attacks that were being made against him. Was he right to do so? It was necessary. But it shouldn't have been. People should have been able to see it for what it was: both an avoidance of the real issues and a distraction from what was valuable. They should have been able to see that the character of those who participate in this kind of behavior is, in fact, a character that is not suited to leadership, that is immature and lacks compassion and kindness. But they could not.
As I thought about this, I remembered a time, many years ago now, when I was being badmouthed in the local community. Ironically, I was being accused of talking smack about someone. Do you see the irony here? They were successful in damaging my reputation by accusing me of talking badly about them. And while I heard third or fourth hand that this was happening, I was never asked or addressed directly about these accusations from people who actually heard them. I had faith that my real friends would see through this mudslinging attack, or at least would have the courage and decency to ask me if they were unsure. I would not bring the accusers up, I would not and did not talk about them to others, despite the fact that they were talking about me in such a hurtful way. I, too, found myself having mistaken faith in other people. I lost friends who did not have the courage or strength to admit to me that they were listening to local gossip and choosing to believe it.
We expect people to be smarter than this. We expect people to be wiser and more discerning than this. But they aren't.
So what do we do with this reality? Are we forced, then, to behave as others do to "stay in the race" as it were, or to hold on to the relationships that matter to us?
I think this is another situation in which we are called to be "in the world, but not of the world." I believe we are called to continue to hold on to our values of honesty, integrity and maturity, even if that means losing the race, even if it means losing friendships. But I also don't think that we are stuck or limited by these choices. We can and should remind people (as I am trying to do here) that mudslinging is not a characteristic we should desire in our leadership. I think it is important to say, loudly and often, that what we want in our leaders is integrity, honesty, and an ability to self-reflect so that the leader can adjust, change and grow into their position. Mudslinging generally shows an inability to be self-reflective or honest because usually it is a sign of undealt with character flaws by the one slinging the mud. While we may not represent the majority of those in our country who vote, choosing not to vote for those who avoid the issues and simply run character-assassination campaigns will only be more and more important as we move forward.
We must choose to do all we can to create the world we want. I personally do not want a world where campaigns are won through personal attack rather than a look at the issues. And I don't want a world where condemnation of others is rewarded whereas compassion and kindness are somehow seen as signs of guilt, weakness or inferiority. So I will not vote for those who continue to engage in the mudslinging. I won't listen to gossip and the maligning of others. And I will talk to people directly if I'm hearing things that I believe are defamatory.
