Why Compassion? Why Politics? What’s in it for me?

First, I was really scared.

Leading up to the 2016 election of Donald Trump, I felt a lot of frustration, anger, helplessness and rage. I was just starting a second career as a political journalist. Working for peanuts, I covered US political news for a startup, Nigerian/American media outlet. I was also writing political opinion pieces for a fledgling news outlet located in Washington DC.

I was also terrified. Although the polls suggested that Hillary Clinton would win the election, it never quite felt right. Hillary was, on her best day, a lousy campaigner.

While Hillary was ineffectively stumping, millions of angry, simmering, American citizens were eagerly waiting for an indecent sociopath to become the next president of the United States.

It’s was the perfect, political storm and the surprise result was inevitable. Donald Trump would become the 45th President of the United States.

I had no compassion at that moment.

I had no compassion for Trump, his minions, or for the raging constituency that voted for him.

I had no compassion when Trump-inspired cronies in Congress affectively derailed the Muller investigation, or when Trump’s ideologically warped Attorney General publicly mischaracterized the results of that investigation.

I had no compassion for Trump or his surrogates when the president held up a Bible in front of a famous DC church for a photo-op.

I had no compassion for Donald Trump when he stood at a podium next to Vladimir Putin and oratorically kowtowed to the Russian dictator. I had no compassion for that weak shell of a man when he impishly threw American intelligence angencies under a manipulative Russian bus.

I had no compassion for Donald Trump when his weak ego, intellectual incuriosity and predisposition to stupidity further divided a nation that was being ravaged by COVID-19.

People started dying.

Then, things changed for me. People started dying. They started dying all over the place.

So many of them, perhaps most of them, didn’t need to die.

Putting a piece of cloth over their mouths and their noses, or simply not going into a crowded space would have saved so many shattered lives.

The virus didn’t care if its victims loved Trump or hated him and it didn’t particularly give a shit if someone had been inspired not the wear a mask.

Social media, at the time, was replete with posts saying things like, “Those who won’t wear a mask deserve whatever they get.”

To an extent, I agreed with them.

Still, people were actually dying. That was real and I couldn’t simply move beyond that reality.

Then came Kristin Urquiza‘s story. Her dad Mark died from COVID and Kristin made national headlines. She said that the “the only preexisting condition” her 65 year old father had was trusting Donald Trump with his life.

At that moment, I shifted from rage to compassion. I felt for Mark, for his daughter, for his family and for everyone that had died.

I soon realized that loathing the living wastes a tremendous amount of energy. Loathing the dead depletes all your energy.

When I started to feel compassion for those Trump-inspired victims of COVID, life got just a little bit easier. Trump himself, no less disgusting or destructive than he was before, offended me less. My happiness started to detach from the subsequent, rancid actions of a narcissistic madman in the White House.

Compassion on my own terms

Although today, I feel no compassion for Donald Trump, I do feel it for many others. So many folks, to their own detriment, still blindly adhere to Dear Leader’s lunacy and act upon his incoherent, whimsical, moody ramblings.

I don’t practice compassion for their benefit. They are responsible for their own actions and for their own lives. I practice it for mine.

When I’m compassionate, I’m happy and resilient.

I can take on any challenge and effectively respond to my personal needs and the needs of a nation in conflict.

I’m not worried about the 2024 presidential election because I believe that I can see the forest from the trees.

I’m not terrified or angry and I’m not affected by a meandering polling point in either direction.

Polling is next to useless anyway. Objectively speaking, national polling has been a mess since the 2016 election.

Compassion lowers my blood pressure, my heart rate and my cortisol levels. I’m not living in a state of fight or flight every time I tune into cable news.

Compassion fosters objectivity and allows me to view the political landscape from the micro and the macro. Sure, I’m guessing the outcome just like everyone else, but compassion inspired objectivity affords me clarity to make better guesses.

Biden wins if it’s Biden.

Joe Biden, if he’s the Democratic nominee, will beat Donald Trump. That’s assuming Trump is the Republican nominee.

I know I’m one of the few, but I still think there’s the slightest chance that, in January, Dean Phillips does well the New Hampshire Primary and Chris Christie or Niki Haley does well in the Iowa Caucus. If any of that happens, this gets much more interesting.

A no-cost, low-effort way to try out compassion.

Irrespective, I strongly recommend you give compassion a test. Former Republican Congressman George Santos is the perfect subject to test it on.

Santos has been tossed out of Congress. He’s not a threat to the republic or even to his former constituents. Sure, he’s a profane liar and a conman, but he’s also mentally ill.

Defy your ego and try to feel compassion for him. Try it for a few days. Then, think about the presidential election and see if your concerns, if your fears are a bit less significant. If they are, try having more compassion.

If it doesn’t work you really haven’t lost anything. The whole effort is free of charge. At the very least, your blood pressure will ease up for a few hours.