The Price of Winning

When I heard the news, I had just finished teaching a class on what divides us in couples as in the political sphere. There was word that packages had been received at the homes of prominent politicians, that the media had been targeted. Does it really matter anymore which side they are on?

I had just shown my class a series of film clips moving from the very benign arguments of couples--Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling's characters in La La Land fighting about their dreams and their love--to more dramatic ones--Viola Davis's heart-wrenching soliloquy in Fences where she chronicles how she had yoked her dreams to a flawed, wounded, and yet inspiring man. And then finally to the true darkness--Kate Winselt and Leo DiCaprio in an all-out verbal brawl from Revolutionary Road, dripping with bile, rage, profound hurt, and naked aggression. Nothing could be healed or brought back together from this emotional carnage.

We were talking about John Gottman's idea that it was the 'Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse' that truly predict divorce: contempt, criticism, defensiveness, & stonewalling. From these markers, Gottman can predict a couple's ultimate demise with near 90 % accuracy.

And then I said it. This administration has peddled more contempt than so many prior ones, and does so in a ruthless fashion that is tearing our country apart. Moving the country itself towards divorce! The research is there to show that the political blame game is compelling and addictive, but ultimately is the death knell of true relating, the fabric of human connection.

If we were to think of our leaders as holding up a relationship with the county at large (imagine them as partners) or even as parental figures who we look to for a model of how to fight fair and still think of the welfare of the children, we must see that the current administration is not only failing, but they tearing the 'children' apart.

It is not surprising that politicians, in the strategy to win over the emotional minds of constituents, draw on the use of the four-horsemen, dodging responsibility for this with defensiveness, criticizing the other side rather than complaining. The level and scope of the use of these has risen to extraordinarily dangerous levels. We have been witnessing regular and outright attacks on individual's personhood (lock them up, keep them out, etc.) rather than delineated complaints about how to change the issues, and a barrage of the kind of contemptuousness that is normally reserved for internet trolls.

While it is easy to see that the package bomb delivery was more than likely independent of anything this administration may have done, it is also easy to see that the nuclear rhetoric of this administration has become a fertile ground for the kinds of fall-out that will not just destroy what is here right now, but may have far-reaching implications of the safety and stability of our democracy and the world.

Our current leader's attempts to call for unity in the best light looks like the arsonist trying to now be the firefighter, or what many in domestic violence circles, would easily see as an after-the-fact poorly performed lip service to divert from the profound issues.

Research shows us how destructive this kind of behavior is up close and personal in our romantic relationships, and ultimately, it should guide us as well in the leaders we choose to help us heal, grow, and discover something new in ourselves, the other, and the world.

In sum, we must question what is the true price of winning? And with that, maybe, we can remember again the true value of compromise and connection.

the perils of polarization, the psychological process for getting back to three-dimensional relating, and the links to couples counseling. I had just taught a class on