In our polarized society, the simple act of listening to people with whom you disagree — let alone working with them — can be grounds for rebuke.
The House Republicans who toppled Speaker Kevin McCarthy this week did so because he forged bipartisan compromises supported by most members of both parties. To the Republican rebels, negotiating with the opposition was a fireable offense.
A similar purism is evident in the spread of book bans targeting material on race and sexuality. In Florida, officials edited a textbook to remove a passage on George Floyd’s murder and the subsequent protests. In Georgia, after a children’s book author giving a talk to fifth graders mentioned that a historical figure was gay, school officials canceled the author’s remaining speaking schedule.
In yesterday’s newsletter, I focused on the specific dangers that extremist Republicans have created for American democracy. Today’s subject — intolerance of differing views — is both a right-wing and left-wing phenomenon. Like the hard-right House Republicans, modern progressivism has created a growing list of issues on which disagreement is unacceptable.
Some universities refuse to hire faculty members who won’t write statements supporting diversity programs. Activists vilify journalists who cover the difficult debate over whether children should undergo lasting gender-transition treatments. In the public health sector, more than 500 experts signed a petition portraying another expert as an unethical, fatphobic eugenics sympathizer — because she had questioned the wisdom of extended Covid lockdowns.
These attempts to enforce ideological purity tend to overlook an important bit of American history: Refusing to listen to the other side of a debate doesn’t have a very good record of success.
Change is messy
Over time, national heroes like Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr. and Franklin D. Roosevelt acquire an image that’s a lot tidier than their real-life behavior was. They are sacralized. They’re treated as leaders who changed the country by transcending politics.
In truth, a defining feature of the country’s most effective leaders has been their embrace of messy politics, including a willingness to listen to, and work with, people whose views they do not share. Transformational leaders tend to be both radical and practical.
It was true of the founders and the suffragists, of Roosevelt and King. In a new book about Lincoln, Steve Inskeep, the NPR host, argues that this approach was a defining feature of Lincoln’s victory over slavery and his rescue of the nation. The book’s first sentence is, “Abraham Lincoln was a politician.”
He refused to isolate an abolitionist in Congress whom others considered extreme. He also worked with a leader of the anti-immigration Know Nothing party. The title of Inskeep’s book is “Differ We Must,” a reference to a line in a respectful letter that Lincoln wrote to a friend who refused to oppose slavery.
“If you’re going to defeat someone you think is doing something terrible, and also keep a democracy, you have to build a majority,” Inskeep said in an interview with Anand Giridharadas’s Substack newsletter. “And that might mean that you have to deal with people that you disagree with on some things, or many things, or even most things, but you find enough common cause that you can work with them on something.”
The counterargument is plain enough: that the other side in a political debate is so wrong that it doesn’t merit engagement. The other side is un-American, according to this view, or, to use a phrase now common on the political left, denies the humanity of others; it simply must be defeated.
The unanswered question, though, tends to be how it will be defeated.
In a democracy, victory requires winning enough votes to take power, which in turn requires persuasion. That doesn’t mean winning over most of your opponents. It does often mean winning over some of them. And it’s difficult to persuade others if you stop listening to them. “Had he failed to engage with people who differed, he would have not become the Lincoln we know,” Inskeep writes.
An abiding lesson of political change is that it’s usually accomplished by people who aren’t too pure to treat their opponents with respect. The new biography of King, by Jonathan Eig, contains evidence of the same point.
The recent history of the House of Representatives makes the point, too. Congressional Democrats have done the difficult, often unsatisfying work of compromising with each other and the Senate over the past 15 years — and along the way, they passed laws to expand health insurance, fund clean energy, build roads and semiconductor factories, and more. House Republicans have a less impressive list of accomplishments. When they have been in power, they have spent more time deposing their own leaders for being impure.
More on the speaker race
Donald Trump endorsed Representative Jim Jordan, the combative Judiciary Committee chairman.
Two Republicans running have dueling views on Ukraine. Steve Scalise has backed more aid; Jordan hasn’t.
THE LATEST NEWS
Migration
The Biden administration plans to expand the wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, a project it once opposed, and to deport thousands of Venezuelans who recently entered the U.S.
The administration said it would waive environmental laws to build the wall quickly, The Texas Tribune reports.
A surge of Venezuelan migrants has overwhelmed Chicago’s public services.
Trump
After leaving office, Trump shared nuclear submarine secrets with an Australian businessman at Mar-a-Lago. Prosecutors have interviewed the businessman.
Trump’s lawyers asked a judge to throw out the federal election interference case, citing presidential immunity.
More on Politics
The police arrested a man with a handgun who was looking for Gov. Tony Evers at the Wisconsin State Capitol. The man posted bail and returned with an assault rifle.
“She showed the way”: Female political leaders, including Vice President Kamala Harris, honored Dianne Feinstein at her memorial service.
Representative George Santos’s former treasurer admitted that she had fraudulently reported a fictional $500,000 loan that Santos claimed to have made to his campaign.
The I.R.S. placed a lien on Rudy Giuliani’s Florida condo because he owes about $550,000 in taxes.
War in Ukraine
A Russian missile killed at least 51 people at a wake for a Ukrainian soldier in the northeastern village of Hroza.
Vladimir Putin suggested that an intoxicated Yevgeny Prigozhin and his associates caused the plane crash that killed them. U.S. officials say Putin probably ordered Prigozhin’s death.
Syria
A drone attack killed at least 80 people at a graduation ceremony for Syrian military cadets. No group has claimed responsibility.
In a separate episode, a U.S. fighter jet shot down a Turkish military drone that had entered a restricted zone in Syria, launched airstrikes and flown near American troops.
Business
The S.E.C. sued Elon Musk to force him to testify about purchasing Twitter stock before he bought the company.
Emma Tucker, The Wall Street Journal’s new editor in chief, wants to shed stuffiness and attract younger readers.
Nobel Peace Prize
The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Narges Mohammadi, Iran’s most prominent human rights activist, who is imprisoned.
She is still pushing for national change from inside her jail cell. Read a profile of her.
Other Big Stories
George Tyndall, the former U.S.C. gynecologist accused of sexually abusing patients, was found dead at his home. The cause of death was unclear.
China is experiencing a brain drain, but the U.S. isn’t benefiting from it. Many of those leaving are going to other developed countries, Li Yuan reports.
Opinions
When health care workers’ mental health and workplace safety improves, patients’ well-being improves, Dr. Craig Spencer writes.
President Biden’s middle-class ethos and economic aggression still give Democrats their best chance, David Brooks argues.
Here’s a column by Michelle Goldberg on House Republicans.
MORNING READS
“Too young for me!”: Inside a senior center’s screening of “The Golden Bachelor.”
Predators: Forget lion snarls. For the animals on South Africa’s savanna, the scariest sound is the human voice.
Ride share: What if drivers were paid hourly, not per trip? One start-up is taking on Uber to find out.
Modern Love: Two very big secrets, and a polygraph test that brought a couple closer. Listen to the new season of the “Modern Love” podcast.
Lives Lived: Dick Butkus was the Chicago Bears’ Hall of Fame middle linebacker of the 1960s and ’70s and a selection for the N.F.L.’s 100th anniversary all-time team. He died at 80.
SPORTS
N.F.L.: The Chicago Bears won their first game in 347 days, a 40-20 win over the Washington Commanders. Receiver D.J. Moore was the star.
Basketball: The reigning M.V.P., Joel Embiid, pledged his international allegiance to the U.S. for the 2024 Olympics.
ARTS AND IDEAS
A high honor: The Norwegian writer Jon Fosse won the Nobel Prize in Literature. Fosse is best known for his plays, whose sparse style and existential themes draw comparisons to Harold Pinter and Samuel Beckett. His novels have also recently found acclaim in the English-speaking world — especially his “Septology” series, about an aging artist’s reckoning with the divine.
Here’s a guide to Fosse’s best work — and an explanation of how the literature prize is selected.
More on culture
The Nigerian-Belgian artist Otobong Nkanga won the Nasher Prize for sculpture, one of the art world’s top honors.
THE MORNING RECOMMENDS …
Cook marry me chicken, which tastes great even if no one pops the question.
Buy cookware that can last a lifetime for under $100.
Add these items to your first aid kit.
GAMES
Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was childlike.
And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku and Connections.
Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — David
P.S. Amy Fiscus, this newsletter’s indefatigable deputy editor, is joining The Washington Post to oversee politics, national security and more. Take it from us: Her new colleagues are lucky.
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