It’s Complicated
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Donald Trump, and Nuance
I did my graduate work at an Evangelical Christian school. A breathtaking, remarkable place by so many measures, deeply unlike whatever comes to mind when you hear of Evangelical Christian education. But a flawed and human organization as well, that would break my heart in a variety of ways.
Years after graduating I kept hearing from my LGBTQIA+ former-classmates that they felt like second-class citizens. And I ended up, somewhat foolishly, leading a push to get the school to add sexuality and gender identity to its bullying policy and non-discrimination policy regarding both students and faculty. My argument was that we simply wanted to say out loud that queer folks were allowed to be at the school. We weren’t asking for the school to adopt an inclusive teaching stance, or proclaim a doctrinal position on God, perhaps, being fond of queer folks. Just that they could be present.
It drummed up a lot of energy. I was surprised by the courage of some folks to align themselves publicly with their queer neighbors. And I was disappointed by some folks I thought of as friends and their scowling shaming of me.
My then-pastor (and fellow alum) relayed a backchannel message to me. The first point was that I had set back the inclusion of queer people in the school “by a decade.” There were “people” working behind the scenes to “make things happen,” but by publicly pushing for some measure of inclusion now, I had harmed the cause deeply. A common, and very effective, rebuke for people who demand justice.
The second part of it was equally familiar: It’s more complicated than you understand.
This version of It’s complicated is used strategically to gaslight people and movements. Don’t trust your own experience, we actually have a more accurate experience that’s beyond your grasp, so you’ll have to trust our understanding over your own.
You want the police budget cut in half? Politicians want to let us know that it’s just more complicated than our little brains could process, so we’ll have to trust them that not cutting the budget is actually in our best interest. Want to have the creepy, lecherous manager at work fired for his inability to keep his hands of your female coworkers? You’ll be surprised to find out that, well, it’s complicated.
This version of It’s complicated is used strategically to gaslight people and movements. Don’t trust your own experience, we actually have a more accurate experience that’s beyond your grasp, so you’ll have to trust our understanding over your own.
This is a weapon to establish mental superiority of those in power over those without power.
But there’s also another kind of it’s complicated. One that’s painful, but one that I’m grateful for.
I have friends across a wide variety of the political spectrum on Facebook. When RBG passed away on Friday, there was a variety of responses. Including posts saying that she can burn in hell.
But not from the right.
The political spectrum on my Facebook page is, well, complicated.
A wise Latina woman in my life posted with bitterness the she didn’t want to hear RBG’s name on Trump’s lips. Her post, if possible, was quivering with rage. I would have counted myself among those who had no interest in finding out what Trump had to say about her passing. His messages are so often dark and terrifying and baffling and toxic. They leave me hopeless about the state of our nation, and I only have so much bandwidth to process so much horror.
A wise Latina woman in my life posted with bitterness the she didn’t want to hear RGB’s name on Trump’s lips. Her post, if possible, was quivering with rage.
But someone on TikTok duetted with a video of his response to reporters when he found out. So his face and words were suddenly on my phone. The TikToker had duetted the video because she was so surprised by what he said. I felt her shock as well.
If we can pause the three million other variables, that do need to be taken into account, for just a moment Trump’s response is deeply surprising.
“She led an amazing life. What else can you say? She was an amazing woman, whether you agree or not. She was an amazing woman who led an amazing life. I’m actually sad to hear that.”
The video is even more intense that just reading the printed words.
And it’s all so unexpected at so many levels. It is, with all sincerity, the least narcissistic and least sociopathic clip I’ve ever seen of him speaking. He comes across as human, as genuinely sympathetic, as spontaneously praising someone with kindness and fondness.
We need a mental shorthand for the world around us. Our little brains didn’t evolve to keep track of too many variables at once. We can’t concentrate on the capital of Syria and chord structure of My Shot, and that snide comment our mother made as we were heading out the door to our first middle school dance all at once.
When I teach drawing to college students or my children, much of the work is getting them to unravel the mental shorthand they have about how things look and begin to explore a more longhand way of making note of the world around them. Cats are not circles with triangles and straight lines coming out of their heads.
One of the surprising things my Evangelical Divinity Program centered on is Alfred Korzybski’s postmodern observation that a map is not a territory. A word is not the thing it represents. Or as Magritte pointed out to us in The Treachery of Images, this is not a pipe. It’s a painting of a pipe.
My thoughts about the Bible are not the Bible
My observations on Trump are not Trump.
The real thing will always be more complicated than my brief notes that I have taken about it.
Those on my Facebook wishing RBG a good time in hell were on the far left, not the far right. To be fair, they were more friends of friends. They wanted us to remember that she cheerfully deported undocumented folks and joyfully built pipelines through sacred indigenous lands. That she was part of the prison industrial complex.
They are, of course, right. RBG wasn’t a saint.
But in that moment, they were displaying significantly less humanity and generosity than Trump, which is saying something.
I have tried to hold onto some semblance of nuance about Trump throughout his presidency. My divinity program is likely responsible for my ability to do so.
But I do so for my sake, and for our sake, not for his sake.
He is unbelievably self-absorbed. He is remarkably uninformed and uneducated for a political figure of any stature. He consistently is racist and transphobic. He is violent, likely a child rapist, admittedly a sexual predator. He is, certainly, a monster.
But, as American Horror Story: Asylum’s Sister Jude Martin reminds us, “all monsters are human.”
His crimes don’t erase his humanity.
But I can only hold onto this because I also remember that his humanity doesn’t erase his crimes.
His crimes don’t erase his humanity. But I can only hold onto this because I also remember that his humanity doesn’t erase his crimes.
I want to honor my wise elder’s disgust at RBG’s name on Trump’s lips. But I want to see Trump’s armor crack, if only for a moment. I want to honor RBG’s powerful legacy of doing harm to the patriarchy at so many levels. But I don’t want to imagine her a saint, caring well for the undocumented, indigenous, or falsely accused. I want to remember those disappointments.
I want to remember that this is all complicated. Not the relativistic, nihlistic too complicated to be thought through. Not the condescending complicated of those in power trying to cast doubt on the experiences of the oppressed.
I want to remember that it is more complicated than I currently understand. I want to hold onto certain kind of curiosity and humility than hold open space for new revelations, new understandings, new vantage points.
I want to hold onto certain kind of curiosity and humility than hold open space for new revelations, new understandings, new vantage points.
I want to set down the bombastic black and white rage that smugly sees itself as above the sheeple, regardless of where it comes from on the political spectrum. Not because all parts of the spectrum are equally valuable, and have an equal mix of saints and sinners. But because all parts of the spectrum have ways of knowing that are bitter and rigid and toxic.
I’m thankful for the life Ruth Bader Ginsburg led. She has brought hope and courage into my life personally. I deeply grieve the monstrous presidency of Donald Trump and the hatred and ignorance he has nurtured and fanned in my neighbors.
But I want to stay open to the three dimensional humanity of both of them. With room for relief and disappointment.
