There Is No Law Requiring You to Respect Anyone’s Opinion

Now that the election is over, some are insisting that the opinions of Trump voters must be respected and that labeling him and them bigots, misogynists, fascists, neo-Nazis, autocrats, and racists is disrespectful and needs to stop.

First, let’s be clear, when you respect someone or something, it comes from a genuine place inside of you wherein you acknowledge, appreciate and honor someone because of their qualities, achievements, and/or status. “Genuine” is the key word when it comes to respect. Usually, being respectful is not perfunctory, or given lightly.

Secondly, there is no immutable law of respect that says you must respect someone’s opinion when you don’t agree with it.

In fact, if you tell someone you respect their opinion when you actually don’t (for example, just to get out of an uncomfortable argument, which is very common) then you’re simply lying and undermining your own integrity and sense of what’s right and wrong.

And consider this, when someone makes a choice to support a candidate who by all accounts (even his own!) is engaging in language and behavior that is universally equated with that of bigots, misogynists, fascists, neo-Nazis, autocrats, and racists then they are understandably opening themselves up to be tarred with the same brush.

Now many Trump supporters claim to be “telling it like it is” when calling people who don’t support him all sorts of disgusting and disrespectful names. So, why can’t those who don’t support him do the same and “tell it like it is” as they see it? Of course they can, although they might not because they don’t want to lower themselves to name-calling even though they have serious questions about the judgement of someone who voted for Trump.

And let’s also acknowledge that misinformation, disinformation and propaganda played leading roles in this election. Seriously, Haitian immigrants eating household pets in Ohio, without a shred of evidence and after repeated official denials? Again, no one should be surprised that reasonable people would seriously question the judgement of someone who believes such outrageous, ridiculous falsehoods. To then go ahead and say to those believers, “I respect your opinion,” would mean you’d lost all self-respect for your own common sense – or you’re simply in fear of how that person would react if you told them to their face that they’re completely out of their minds.

Nevertheless, I think we can all agree that all of this disrespectful name calling does nothing except drive wedges between us, wedges that are fast becoming chasms that may very well prove to be unbridgeable for generations to come. And let’s stipulate that disrespectful language and behavior in the workplace is really, really bad for employee morale, productivity, loyalty, engagement and satisfaction, not to mention the bottom line.

But right now, many Americans are being told that they must respect the opinions of voters who supported Trump – the people who deliberately chose someone who has been repeatedly and publicly disrespectful of vast swaths of Americans and called “unfit to lead” by most of his own hand-picked first administration team. And we’re being told that we must respect Trump voters’ disrespect for democracy, for the law, for women, and for principles of decency and compassion.

Again, there is no law that says you should respect these disrespectful opinions. And if you’re only saying that you do respect them in order to avoid conflict or even worse consequences, then its disturbingly sad that this is where we have come to as a nation.

It’s time we jettison the notion that respecting an opinion we don’t agree with is required. It’s not. Instead, we need to return to having respect for facts, for truth, for decency and for democracy. Of course, try to hold off disrespecting others if you can; but don’t feel obligated to say you respect anyone’s opinion when you don’t. You can simply say, “I respect you as a human being” and leave it at that.

by Gregg Ward | Founder & Executive Director at The Center for Respectful Leadership