OPINION:
So much turmoil. So much chaos. So much cynicism in Washington and everywhere else. “Divide” is the name of the game. Everyone is in a fighting mode. The most dramatic (and ludicrous) image of the week was the idea of Donald Trump and Joe Biden boasting how they could punch each other out, as if they were heavyweight boxers prepping for the ’thrilla in Manila” or “the rumble in the jungle.”
Two mature men seasoned in the highest offices of the land sounded more like adolescent boys on the playground, testing their testosterone.
When Rex Tillerson bid farewell to the State Department, after he was fired as secretary of State in a Twitter tweet, he reminded the audience that “this can be a very mean-spirited town.” He urged them to counter the nastiness, “to treat each other with respect, regardless of the job title, the station in life, or your role.” He spoke with a familiar echo of the Golden Rule: “We’re all human beings trying to do our part. Each of us get to choose the person we want to be, and the way we want to be treated, and the way we will treat others.”
The departing secretary of State isn’t alone in searching for ways to talk to each other without the snark that begets anger, hair-trigger tempers and the obscenity that has become the lingua franca of the capital. My mailbox is filled with expressions of outrage over the endless outrage.
There seems to be a craving for community, for a sense that we’re all in this together and should seek solutions through a give-and-take in reasoned debate, rather than always agitating for advantage. But balanced voices are drowned in the din.
Two men in power in Washington have written a book to identify ways to ameliorate some of the pervasive vitriol in the current Congress. “Unified,” by Sen. Tim Scott and Rep. Trey Gowdy, both from South Carolina, tells how their unlikely friendship offers hopeful tips for diluting the power of rabid divisions in the country.
Tim is black and Trey is white, and their grandparents, to whom they dedicate their book, lived in a segregated age that ensured that they probably would never meet, and if they did could never mingle. Had they had the opportunity of knowing each other, they probably would have embraced prejudice that divided them.
Two generations later, their grandsons carry a different degree of separation into their meeting. Both are Republicans, but occupy different places on the political spectrum.
Tim Scott was the first black man elected from South Carolina since 1896 and the Reconstruction era, and party leaders immediately saw him as a valuable face in the party lineup. Reporters and pundits sought him out as a senator with star power. As a black conservative, he was encouraged to be as “visible” as possible. But he didn’t want to always be the go-to guy with “the conservative black perspective” on every issue.
Trey Gowdy got to Congress by beating an incumbent in the primary. He was labeled as a comer from the Tea Party. Along with his funny hair, dark blue suits and white cotton socks, he showed a serious side as a tough prosecutor, employing intellectual discipline to make the most of a cross-examination.
Neither man was a partier or a drinker, so they quickly found camaraderie by seeking common ground despite disparate backgrounds. Their book is filled with familiar platitudes of common sense that worked once and they think might work again. Instead of focusing on differences, they look for commonalities.
Tim Scott tells how he was supported by a volunteer with the Confederate flag emblazoned on his T-shirt, who said he didn’t care if his congressman was “black, white or polka-dotted” as long as he was a conservative. Trey Gowdy thinks the only important division is the one between those of good conscience and those who aren’t. He hosted roundtables throughout the state bringing together pastors, police officers and administrators to seek reunion in communities where conflict was rife. There were no cameras. He even persuaded Jeff Sessions, then the newly nominated U.S. attorney general, to attend one roundtable.
Their book is punctuated with refreshing anecdotes about how Washington works (when it does), but stories about friendship and inspiration can be a tough sell when the discontent of difference is the driving force for getting attention.
When their book was finished Mr. Gowdy, the powerful chairman of the House Oversight Committee, not without controversy called it quits at partisan politics and said he was going home to practice law. The toxic nature of Washington had finally gotten to him. Tim tried to dissuade him, but not even friendship could stretch that far. Farewell to fame, strife, and all that.
• Suzanne Fields is a columnist for The Washington Times and is nationally syndicated.
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