In the last issue, I took a look back at the disappointing two-and-a-half-year trajectory of the two tasks that I originally proposed in April of 2022, defining them at that time as a pair of collective efforts that liberals and Buddhists could undertake in the run-up to the 2024 presidential election, in the hopes of preventing Donald Trump’s return to the White House.
The election’s outcome, of course, has since rendered the first task obsolete, and drastically altered the circumstances under which we might continue to pursue the second task. Accordingly, I concluded my review with updated versions of each of those two original tasks, redefining them as collective efforts liberals and Buddhists can undertake in this new uncertain era of the Trump 2.0 regime.
Here they are, as they appeared in last month’s issue:
Stand courageously and nonviolently against the Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle the constitutional rule of law here in the United States and to disrupt the established international norms of mutual respect and cooperation with our traditional allies abroad.
Practice deep and sustained habits of skillful speech, and bring those skills to the forefront in each and every conversation we have with MAGA supporters - especially those who are wavering in their support of Trump as a result of being personally impacted by his personal behaviors and/or his administration’s policies.
In this issue, I want to look more deeply at each of our two new tasks, probing into some of the possibilities, as well as some of the difficulties, that adhere to them. I also want to offer a more succinct phrase by which we can refer to each:
Task #1 - Courageous and Nonviolent Resistance
As of this writing, we have already witnessed two significant public demonstrations, at both national and global levels, in response to the authoritarian actions of the Trump regime. Both the “Hands Off” marches on April 5th and the “No Kings” marches on April 19th have been models of courageous and nonviolent resistance. So, one way to engage in task #1 is to show up for the next march, and for the one after that, and for as many of the ones to follow, for as long as it takes and for as long as you’re able.
If, however, participating in a large public demonstration is not something that you can easily and/or comfortably do, there are any number of other ways in which you might practice courageous and nonviolent resistance. Here are a few suggestions:
Attend a Town Hall meeting, if one of your congressional, state, or local representatives chooses to hold one; even if you don’t speak and voice your concerns, your presence in the audience is by its very nature an act of courage and nonviolent resistance; so is cheering and applauding for those who do speak.
Make phone calls to your congressional representatives; express either your appreciation when they stand up to Trump, or your disappointment when they fail to do so; the easiest way to reach the office of any member of Congress is through the U. S. Capitol switchboard, (202) 224-3121; another convenient way to make such phone calls is by using the 5 Calls app, which you can learn more about here.
Check out the website for the newly-founded Buddhist Coalition for Democracy, and read the “Call to Action” published there; if you find yourself in agreement with the principles espoused therein, consider adding your name as a signatory, and/or donating to the group; then pass the link along to a friend or family member you think might also want to support the coalition.
Donate to one or more of the organizations that have been filing lawsuits challenging Trump’s most egregious actions; two that my wife and I support financially are the American Civil Liberties Union and Public Citizen; there are many other organizations working to support our democracy, and if you wish to recommend one or more of them, please do so in the comments section below.
Once again, these are just a few suggestions based on my own personal experience; do please add your own suggestions for courageous and nonviolent resistance in the comments section below.
Task #2 - Compassionate and Nonjudgmental Speech
While task #1 is all about what we should do, task #2 is very much about what we should NOT do. We should not allow ourselves to express anger and resentment at those who voted for Trump, and who may still support him. Nor should we ever allow ourselves to express a sense of our own moral superiority to those Trump voters who are now experiencing “buyer’s remorse” as they watch him wreak havoc upon the economy, the global world order, and the fundamental idea of the United States as a nation governed by the rule of law.
I don’t mean to say that it’s somehow wrong to feel anger and resentment at the first group, and righteous superiority toward the second one. We are, all of us, human enough that we can’t help but feel such emotions from time to time.
What I do mean to say is that while feeling such emotions is only human, expressing them is a mistake. A huge mistake.
We are in this existential crisis of Trump 2.0 in large part because too many people like the ones we may be feeling angry and resentful toward, or morally superior to, did vote for him - or stayed home rather than vote for Kamala. And if we want them to vote differently, or merely to vote, in the next election, the least effective thing we can do is to talk down to them, or to tell them how wrong they are.
A much more effective thing we can do is to practice task #2. Engaging in compassionate and nonjudgmental speech requires us to suspend our judgment of the other’s position, even as we maintain our belief in the validity of our own position. In particular, it requires that we “first seek to understand, then to be understood” (paraphrasing Stephen Covey’s habit #5 from his 1989 book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”).
Personally, I have enormous challenges in practicing task #2 myself. My anger surges every time I realize that we wouldn't be in this existential crisis of democracy if enough people had voted for Kamala. I have two siblings who, along with their spouses and some of their adult children, are firm MAGA supporters. And I’m sorry to confess that, ten years after Trump’s infamous ride down that escalator to the lobby of his Fifth Avenue tower, I still fail over and over again in my attempts to have a meaningful conversation with any of these family members.
But I’m still trying.
Perhaps some of you are doing better at this than I am. Or maybe you’re struggling just as I am. Either way, please feel welcome to share your experiences in the comments section.
Conclusion - a Buddhist perspective on these two new tasks
In writing this essay and thinking more deeply about them, I noticed that both of these new tasks have a grounding in traditional Buddhism’s “eightfold path” leading to the cessation of suffering. Specifically, task #1 can be seen as a form of skillful action, and task #2 as a form of skillful speech.
Courageous and nonviolent resistance is fundamentally an expression of compassion. We witness the suffering of the untold numbers of individuals in our country and in countries across the globe who have been, and are being, victimized by Trumps’s abusive, and in many cases unconstitutional, policies and pronouncements. And, as the practice of compassion requires, we are moved to take whatever action is available to us in an effort to mitigate that suffering. Participating in nonviolent public demonstrations of resistance is one such action available to us, and so I would argue that pursuing task #1 can be considered as following the fourth step along the eightfold path - skillful action.
Compassionate and nonjudgmental speech is fundamentally an expression of kindness. We listen to the other with an attitude of acceptance (which does NOT imply agreement!), offering them a “safe space” in which to express their thoughts and feelings without fear of rebuke. We speak to them from a place of “I see this differently than you” (rather than a place of “You’re wrong about this, and I’m right”). We have a discussion, not a debate. We may not persuade, but we don’t provoke. We might come away from the conversation believing that we failed to achieve a good outcome, but unbeknownst to us, someday in the future, something we said today may come to resonate and perhaps even change our conversational partner’s opinion a bit. Given that such an outcome is always possible, I would argue that pursuing task #2 can be considered as following the third step along the eightfold path - skillful speech.
AfterWords
One reason that the eightfold path came to mind as I was writing about the two new tasks above is almost certainly due to my having recently read Mark Epstein’s excellent 2018 book, “Advice Not Given”. Dr Epstein, a practicing psychiatrist as well as a long-time dharma teacher, subtitled his book “A Guide to Getting Over Yourself”, and divided it into eight chapters, each of them successively titled in the order of the tasks specified in the eightfold path. Here’s a quote from his third chapter, “Right Speech”, which I found particularly useful …
“The classic approach to Right Speech asks us to pay attention to the space between thought and action, and to intervene when the words we want to say have a toxic quality. It asks us to abstain from language that serves no good purpose, from words that are hurtful or distracting. Right speech can also be applied to our inner worlds. We can watch and question our loops of thought, and rein them in.”
As I continue to struggle with my personal efforts at task #2, I’m paying particular attention to Dr Epstein’s wise advice about observing our own inner speech patterns.
Thank you Tom for your thoughtful writing, much of which resonates with me particularly in the case of having family members who have voted (twice) for Trump. I would say the most challenging aspect of our conversations have to do with where they get their news from (Fox),
meaning that there are many topics where it is impossible to share a common ground. It becomes so many lessons in witnessing and acceptance.
Dear Tom, regarding your discussion on skillful speech with family: it’s worth taking a look at an approach called “Street Epistemology” which I learned about (& practiced) in the Middle Way Society discussion group. It is a kind of structured (& mindful) way to approach discussions concerning beliefs. That said, I’ve never been able to experiment with using it in conversations with MAGA siblings who support Trump. I am a socialist and that’s enough to have been shunned, and I no longer have any contact with them, which makes me quite sad. But I think the method of Street Epistemology is quite good in approaching the discussion of beliefs especially in that it enables the practice of respect to form because one is interested in & listens to how someone values their beliefs, and its allows for the expression of differences of belief.