Axar.az presents an article “ The Politics Of Contemp” by John Samuel Tieman.

Politics is about hope. So how do I feel today about MAGA? We should never hold them in contempt. Contempt is a kind of hopelessness. Hope lies not in converting MAGA back to Jeffersonian and Jacksonian democracy. Hope lies not in simply defeating those who would be fascists. Hope lies in a kind of reset, a reset that goes back to first principles and, at the same time, embraces modern psychology. Thus, these two thoughts. First, our government is a product of the Enlightenment. Except for things like emergency services, it was never designed for a rapid response. Nor does it answer to any one individual. It is meant to be a deliberative and at times ponderous response to groups. This wounds the individual's narcissism. Thus the second thought. Our government is pre-Freudian – but we aren't.

I sometimes think that all politics is about loss. Everyone wants everything, and they want it right now. But nobody gets everything they want. It's always a narcissistic challenge. I often say that, if you go to City Hall wanting ten things, and if you actually get three, you've had one hell of a great day. And everybody wants everything right now. I am a historian. To the best of my knowledge, the words “government” and “alacrity” have never occurred in the same sentence in all of human history.

Government is not about the “I”. It's about the “we”. You have the right to "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness" because everyone has the right to "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness". You get this governmental service because all of your neighbors get that service. The government gives you parks and streetlights and fire protection and on and on. For as much as we admire individualism, no one alone can do much of anything. “I” didn't build the interstate highway system. “We” did.

The narcissistic wound is persistent. But that wound, which is never healed, can be treated by a form of caring. We care for people by letting them matter to us. We can always move to healing. How? Through the skills, norms and practices of politics. Specifically patience, perseverance and politeness. These aren't new. This is a reset, a reset to the norms, skills and practices of the democratic republic, a reset that honors both our Enlightenment roots and our debt to Sigmund Freud.

Consider patience. My wife is a psychoanalyst. She speaks of the patience it takes to accept unknowing, the patience it takes to sit with unknowing, the patience it takes to work with unknowing. Politics is not psychoanalysis. But, like psychotherapy, politics takes a lot of time. Few things happen quickly. Indeed, with the exception of things like emergency services and such, the political process is designed to be languorous and thoughtful. On the national level, we have examples of what happens when you rush. The first 100+ days of the second Trump term, these days have been more of a crash on takeoff than a cross-country navigation. Thus does governance begin with patience. And continue with perseverance.

Now consider perseverance. A political proposal can take, months, years, and even decades to be enacted. This is a social fact that simply is beyond the individual. So if you want to get anything done, think of Aesop and be the tortoise.

Politeness. As opposed to contempt. “We have a new viral, toxic, almost lethal issue that almost no one has named,” Timothy Shriver said. “We have a cultural addiction to contempt. It is not a function of disagreement. We do not have a disagreement problem in this country. We have a contempt problem.” Take this one example. “All politicians are incompetent and dishonest.” You hear it all the time. A person comes before the dais. That person may have good ideas. But a politician has to work to hear the good when that person begins by belittling, demeaning and degrading that politician. It's worth repeating that it's not the critique that's the problem. A politician shouldn't be respected simply because they are an office holder. A politician should be respected because they are a human being. The person who is angry with another, the person who is aggressive with another, that person can still see the other as a person. Contempt thing-ifies the other. Anger and aggression can be useful, helpful. But contempt stifles democracy and erodes the republic. Why? Because contempt is a kind of hopelessness.