The Act of Petting a Dog
Despite the nation's increasingly fierce polarization, simple kindness should not be grounds for condemnation
Joe Biden is not a saint. His dog Commander sometimes bites secret service agents. He has a troubled son and a seventh grandchild that he resisted publicly acknowledging until the last month. He often tells bad jokes. Like all of us, he’s a flawed human and deserves criticism when his failings harm others.
Last week he went to Maui to address the deadliest wildfire in our nation’s history. (The death toll is currently at 115 and 388 people are on a list of the still missing.)
When he was there, Biden promised “to make sure the community has everything—everything the federal government can offer to heal and to rebuild as fast as possible.” He also said “the country grieves with you, stands with you, and we’ll do everything possible to help you recover, rebuild, and respect culture and traditions when the rebuilding takes place.” That’s what an empathic president who understands the purpose and value of government does.
President Biden also paused to pet a dog—a golden labrador named Dexter with the grim responsibility of searching for cadavers. Biden made a light joke because Dexter was wearing small boots to protect his paws from the heat. “You guys catch the boots out here?” he asked, turning to reporters. “That’s a hot ground, man.”
This was the reason Biden haters popped up to condemn him—his insensitivity, his poor taste, his fulfillment of the narrative that he’s a bad and incompetent man. The Republican National Committee attacked him for being “distracted by a dog.” (In response, a White House deputy secretary called the criticisms “classless and stupid.”)
Was the joke a little careless? Probably. Did it follow his reluctance to respond to a reporter’s question about Maui a few days earlier while trying to take a day off at the beach? It did. Do either events justify an attack on this fabled empath as lacking compassion or worse? Come on.
We are living in an unusually binary time in which deciding where you stand has real-world, often life-and-death, consequences. You’re either pro-choice or anti-abortion. You either believe in man-made climate change and the need to confront this existential crisis or you deny it. You either support Ukraine in its efforts to defend itself and democracy against Russia’s brutal aggression or you don’t. You either believe in equality or you reject it. You are either an advocate for democracy or you’re just fine with leaders and policies hastening its demise.
Have no doubt: Donald Trump and his enablers have dramatically exacerbated this polarization before, during and after his presidency. As they would have it, America has become a crueler, less forgiving, more politically violent and precarious place. Given that, there’s less and less room for nuance, more and more need to call out failures and transgressions in the harshest terms because the stakes are so high.
If you’re a progressive and believe in the role of government to make lives better, it’s not good enough to remain silent while extreme conservative Supreme Court justices run roughshod over women’s rights, refuse to act ethically and fail to recuse themselves when judging cases where they clearly possess conflicts of interest. It’s not tolerable to look the other way when an ex-president and a leading GOP candidate continues to attack prosecutors and condemn the Justice Department and the rule of law, even after four indictments and 91 felony charges in four different jurisdictions.
In turn, if you’re a MAGA Republican, you likely despise our judicial system and its leaders that would dare charge your leader with a crime—especially after he’s told you over and over he’s done nothing wrong, he won the election, Justice is corrupt, Biden is clearly exploiting his power to wrongly attack his political rival and it’s all just persecution.
Here’s the thing: Perhaps since WWII when you either supported the war against the Nazis and the fascists or you didn’t, there has rarely been a time that has demanded us to be as clear about our convictions—what we think, who we support, how we need to engage and, yes, which side we are on.
But we will all lose if every moment and every action devolves into an opportunity to condemn the opposition. I acknowledge that I find it quite impossible to discern redeeming qualities in Trump and, therefore, to approach his actions with compassion, except perhaps to note that he suffers from obvious mental disorder and may be incapable of acting with decency or responsibility.
But we cannot let his outsized and dangerous transgressions color our responses to every other act committed in the body politic. If we do, we risk accelerating a world that’s only black and white, where the humanness of actions is squeezed out while we condemn the other. That is often hard to avoid when assessing political actors—you are what you say and do in public—but it’s worth taking an extra breath and asking if there’s a way to understand their choices.
I’m not suggesting, for example, we should simply forgive Ginni Thomas doing her part to egg on the insurrection or her husband’s cavalier ethics and hostility toward legal precedent when he’s determined to strip away rights. I’m not suggesting we should make nice when Kevin McCarthy and Jim Jordan and Marjorie Taylor Greene (to name a few) dangerously and falsely insist Trump’s criminal charges represent the “weaponization” of the Department of Justice. Nor should we take it lightly when these or other bad actors exploit their public platforms to accelerate the country toward fascism.
But I think we have to notice when the close-minded ratcheting up of anger and grievance on both sides is doing everyone harm—and continue to ask where we can find the tiniest points of common understanding. That’s not easy when the political consequences are not just grave, they’re existential; I’m still searching for the responses that will finally bring the extremists back to reality before its too late. But no matter what you believe, no matter how certain you are of your views, petting a dog can’t be a reason for condemnation.
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Yes, is acceptable and even preferable to stop and pet a dog, President Biden is after all a dog lover. Do we ignore the catcalls from the GOP or call it what it is? That party has lost it’s way and has subscribed to the facist narrative of a now disgraced former president and they politicize everything. It is upon us in the opposition not to follow suit. Deal with facts, tell the truth, let the courts decide what the facts are and move on to promote a reasonable, democratic and positive voice for democracy.
Thank you for an excellent column. One additional point, the boots on the dog illustrate the dangers of heat on animals. Whether the ground is hot due climate change or this previously unfathomable disaster that occurred due to it; the boot wearing dog is a reminder of the work that must be done to stop climate change and it tragic consequences.