It’s Getting Hot In Here

Two nights ago I sat in the right field seats at Fenway Park and giddily watched the Red Sox demolish the hapless Baltimore Orioles. Sox third baseman Mike Lowell - hit in the head by a pitch early in the second inning - not only stayed in the game, but played the hero, diving into the stands to catch a foul ball, recording two key hits, and stealing third base with a head first slide to help the Sox win. Man, I love the Red Sox!

And as my Newton North high school buddies and I sipped $4 beers, we watched the left field scoreboard record a loss for the “Evil Empire”, more commonly known as George Steinbrenner’s New York Yankees, moving the Sox within 2 games of first place.

Now I don’t know Derek Jeter, Joe Torre, or Steinbrenner personally, but I “hate” them. I’ve grown up learning to hate the Yankees, Yankee fans, and for that matter everything that is baseball in New York. I can still clearly remember sobbing along with Wade Boggs when the Sox lost a heartbreaker (think Buckner five-hole) to the Mets in 1986.

In many ways my baseball upbringing mirrored my political upbringing in the liberal haven of Newton, Massachusetts. My parents are educators / artists / activists / pacifists who marched against the Vietnam war, spent their lives enjoying and respecting nature, and instilled in me the strong liberal values of civil rights, human rights, and lives dedicated to the public interest. I like to thank them for my financial struggles.

They also, intentionally or not, shielded me from the corrupting influence of Bush 1, Reagan, and the sprinkling of Republicans brave enough to live in Newton. As a result, I came to “hate” Republicans much in the same way I “hate” the Yankees. As a faceless force of evil standing for everything wrong with this country.

Five years ago, I was rudely uprooted from my liberal soil to follow my wife to Michigan to be close to her family, who happen to be Republicans. During my first year in Michigan I got a hands-on, crash course, in Conservative political discourse, primarily from my father-in-law. We discussed Bush vs. Kerry, global warming facts vs. myths, and American capitalism vs. European Social Democracy. It didn’t go well.

And why should it have? He was a Republican, so I “hated” him, his political party, and everything he stood for. I wasn’t trying to broaden my horizons, see his points, or learn. I knew what was right and was trying to win the argument against the enemy.

Over time, however, we have both made quite a bit of progress and gotten quite an education. My father-in-law agrees that society needs to reduce its energy consumption and CO2 emissions, he just doesn’t think that government regulators can get us there – and he’s probably right. I argue that leaving it to voluntary corporate action won’t get us there either – and I’m probably right. And we both think every day citizens – both Democrat and Republican – need to do more to get us there, and we are both right.

Over many hours of heated debate, we have learned to translate each others’ comments into a common, solution-based dialect of English – and can now actually work together to find solutions. We are no longer trying to win the argument, but are struggling together – melding our respective faith in corporations, governments, and citizens - to tackle the biggest issue of our time. Through our discussions, we have now come to know, love, and trust each other, and I must admit, it has made it awfully hard to “hate” him.

In fact, I know I love at least 5 Republicans. And that number keeps growing.

At base, my new family and their Conservative friends are a group of fallible, complex people, who share most of the values that I do. They are my mother-in-law, father-in-law, brother-in-law, sister -in-law, and sister-in-law once removed, and soon to be nephew/niece. And I love them very much.

So while I still “hate” the Yankees, and always will (although I’m sure Derek Jeter is a great guy to get a beer with), and while I still hate the current Republican leadership and am frustrated to tears by the candidate that my father-in-law put into power, I am no longer able, in good conscious, to “hate” Republicans.

And if 30 million of my environmentalist, New York Times reading, public interest, fellow Democrats could just learn to do the same. And if 30 million of my in-laws’ flag-waving, Wall Street Journal reading, pro-business fellow Republican could do the same. Perhaps we could begin to work together and actually make progress on issues - like global warming - that threaten the broad base of common American values that we all share - values that will surely be rendered meaningless if we can’t figure out how to work together in this country.