What does one do with a “gotcha” question? Here is a lesson from Vice President Harris.
Dana Bash, after trying to get Harris to admit she flip flopped on fracking for no scientific reason after she became a national figure (and someone who needs to win Pennsylvania!), brought up Donald Trump’s remarks about whether or not she is really Black. Bash must have been asking about this because that is what every voter needs to hear from a potential candidate, right? “No!” you say? “It was because the CNN anchor, and her network, were hoping stoke a juicy pissing match to make some headlines?” You are probably right.
Unfortunately for Bash and CNN, the Vice President did not take the bait. Her entire response was: “Yeah. Same old tired playbook. Next question.” That’s one thing you could do with a “Gotcha.” Maybe sigh and say, “So boring!” or “So without grace, much less wisdom.”
Gotcha epidemic
Maybe we all need to rehearse our responses. I don’t know if this is happening where you live, but “gotcha” is like a cultural trait around here. Criticism appears to have become an obligation. And catching someone doing something wrong is a sport – even if one needs to make up the wrong out of whole cloth (meaning a patched up mess of scraps masquerading as whole cloth, which was quite expensive in the 16th century).
Trump’s unlawful invasion of the Afghanistan War veterans section of Arlington Cemetery was intended as a “gotcha.” They wanted to tag Kamala Harris with somehow ordering the evacuation during which thirteen soldiers were killed by a bomb — the same evacuation Trump caused by announcing a deadline Biden decided to approximate. Trump intended to show the world how little Harris cares for Afghan War veterans on the sacred day of observance his team concocted. It’s the same old tired playbook. But it happens every day.
I think it happens to most leaders everywhere these days. For instance, I told you I was elected to my condo board. I can’t decide if I was honored to be noticed or not, but one of the members of the loyal opposition to the board spread the rumor that I was illegit because I was delinquent in my payments. Gotcha! Our volunteer lawyer called me up in a tizzy, afraid my reputation was going down the drain. She assured me she informed them I was not delinquent. I think I disappointed her by not being too upset. I’ve been treated worse by people I loved more. And I was wondering if being deposed might just be a good idea.
Such indignities are so common news about them seems normal. For instance, an anonymous complaint was recently filed with the University of Washington where Robin DiAngelo submitted her 2004 dissertation, “Whiteness in Racial Dialogue: A Discourse Analysis.” She went on to write a hugely influential book based on it titled What Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism. Her book is true and was hugely successful. The internet says she might be worth $5 million now. Her writing and speaking contributed to institutional comeuppance all over the country.
The complaint accuses DiAngelo of “research misconduct,” and details 20 instances in which she appears to have drawn on the work of other scholars and reproduced it without proper attribution (I just cut and pasted that sentence from the NYTimes). A conservative newspaper got hold of the complaint and published it. At the University such complaints are confidential — but no more. Before there can be a rational or relational process, there is Gotcha! “Similar complaints have been filed against diversity officers at Harvard, Columbia, the University of California, Los Angeles, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison” (NYT – don’t want more complaints).
Tim Walz’ approach
At the CNN 20-minute-spread-over-45-minutes interview, Tim Walz was apparently there for eye candy. He wasn’t asked too many questions. But, of course, he was asked why he said he carried a gun in war since he was never in combat. He could have said “The U.S. has been at war since I was born and I served in the National Guard for 24 years.” He did not say that in the interview. Bash asked him, “A campaign official said you misspoke. Did you?” I’m not sure why he did not say he misspoke, exaggerated or whatever he was doing. So what? I’m sure he knew people knew he had never been on the front line or directing drones from Nevada. But make sure you don’t make any mistakes in what you say!
His reply was a pretty good example of what to do with a gotcha, however. He said,
“But again, if it’s not this it’s an attack on my children for showing love for me, or it’s an attack on my dog. I’m not going to do that, and the one thing I’ll never do is I’ll never demean another member’s service in any way. I never have and I never will.”
It is OK to talk back to deceivers or just mean people trying to make you look bad — the same people who are making all of us afraid to say anything. I heard from two clients last week who did not want to keep a journal because they actually feared someone would find it and publish it. Even private thoughts are subject to investigation! Gotcha has an impact on our psychological and spiritual development! So like Gov. Walz, we should talk back — especially if the fear has been installed in you.
Our condo building is full of gotcha, like I said. We have a lot of wonderful people, many Jesus-loving people. But even they get caught up in the zeitgeist of thinking some conspiracy is afoot and we’d better uncover it. (Hmmm. Could the nightly stories of about on all those crime dramas have anything to do with that? I was so glad when Marcella was finally over! [Exhaustive recap]. But the reruns of White Collar were still on the list [Matt Bomer shilling]). I get so many indignant emails I started deleting some senders automatically.
That’s sad, isn’t it? Everyone needs community. No one should be summarily deleted. Condo associations are some of the last associations we have left! We need to associate or we get sick. The gotcha era seems to be an hysterical reaction to being so alone and afraid. If someone is out to get us, a lot of us will get them first. If everyone is out to get us, then everyone needs to be got.
John McWhorter’s suggestion
What came to John McWhorter’s mind as he watched Harris find her way through the gauntlet of skepticism, criticism and lying that surrounds everyone in even mildly public life, was not joy, no matter what Oprah said. It was the cautionary tale he learned from being swept up in the adulation of the first black president. He does not think people were crying at the DNC because Harris is a seismic shift towards a renewed era of democracy. He thinks they love her because her Blackness symbolizes something. He says:
It’s time, then, to evaluate Harris according to — you knew this was coming — the content of her character. When I urged that about Obama in 2008, some people took offense. They didn’t like being told that they were objectifying him. They said I was underestimating Obama’s record of achievement. I eventually fell in with the idea that his Blackness was cool and important. I know better now, and I hope we all do.
I wish Harris well, partly because I sincerely believe that my tween daughter — and possibly our guinea pig — would be a better president than the megalomaniacal, incurious, unqualified lout who is the alternative.
But just as it diminishes Harris to cherish her primarily because she is not Trump, it diminishes her to cherish her primarily because of her skin color and a vague sense of what it signifies. We truly honor Harris in fashioning the mental exercise — and it is an effortful one, I know — of assessing her as an individual.
That is another way to deal with the gotcha. Accept yourself and be content with who you are. And let others be who they are. Have the courage to be who you are, tell the truth, and let the chips fall where they may [American woodchopping idiom]. Keep your eyes on the main thing. McWhorter says he is an atheist, but he also says his views were influenced by the Quaker schools he attended here in Philadelphia. He sounds a bit like the Apostle Paul, when he encourages us to see character not superficialities.
So let’s let Paul have the last word. He goes way beyond asking us to avoid seeing people according to the normal superficialities, shame and fear which divide us. He claims Jesus has made us all the same in his death and all unique in his new creation. Not even a “Gotcha!” can do anything about that!
For the love of Christ urges us on, because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died. And he died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for themselves but for the one who for their sake died and was raised.
From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we no longer know him in that way. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; look, new things have come into being! — 2 Corinthians 5:14-17