Jason Crowell taught me an important lesson.
It was toward the end of the Cape Girardeau Republican’s career in the Missouri Senate, and Crowell was engaged in a debate with a brash young Republican named Kurt Schaefer.
Both attorneys, the two men were going at it pretty good. Crowell was getting under Schaefer’s skin, and at some point, the first-termer from Columbia questioned Crowell’s motivations. In the whispers of the stately hallways of the Missouri Capitol, this was not an uncommon occurrence. Crowell was notorious for standing up against bills, many different bills, and even his closest colleagues sometimes couldn’t figure out why.
But on the floor of the Senate, this is, or was, at least, a no-no.
Crowell launched into a thunderous lecture of his GOP colleague about debating issues, not personalities.
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It’s a lesson that could well apply to many areas of life, but in today’s raucously divided political landscape, one that could help folks turn down the temperature on discussions with our friends, neighbors, colleagues and total strangers on various social media platforms.
It’s a lesson that has been in the forefront of my mind as ºüÀêÊÓƵ debarks on what could be two years or longer of intense and personal debate over the future governance of our region. Are we , or shall we simply continue the playground spats that started in second grade at St. Margaret of Scotland?
In ºüÀêÊÓƵ, memories are long, and questioning motivations isn’t a strategy, it’s DNA. This is especially true in political and media circles.
Tishaura Jones isn’t the elected treasurer and former state representative, she’s Virvus Jones’ daughter.
Nancy Rice isn’t the lifelong ºüÀêÊÓƵan who has dedicated the past five years to finding a path toward a successful city-county merger, she’s former Mayor Vincent Schoemehl’s old henchman.
Rex Sinquefield is trying to destroy the city that saw him rise from orphan to billionaire.
Tony Messenger is a libtard or commie or whatever it is the talk radio folks are calling me these days.
In the movie part of which was filmed in ºüÀêÊÓƵ, actor George Clooney’s actor says, “I stereotype, it’s easier.†Such it is with political debates sometimes too often in this town. We diminish our opponent to make it easier to dismiss their argument.
Already, on increasingly toxic Twitter, I’m seeing that happen far too often in the nascent Better Together debate. I’ve been guilty of it, too, prematurely assigning motivations to those who oppose or support the flawed but important proposal before us to unite that which has been divided since 1876.
When debates become personal it becomes increasingly difficult to escape our zero sum worlds. Better Together failed that test last week when it responded to a letter from ºüÀêÊÓƵ alderman Megan Green with a snarky note that diminished the fair and serious questions she asked about the proposal.
Please see our response below.
— Better Together STL (@BTstl)
I’ve heard from many people in government, from city managers to attorneys to aldermen, who have similar questions. Many of the answers haven’t yet been provided. This is an enormously important matter. Using it to settle old political scores is a recipe for disaster.
Sometimes in politics the hardest thing to remember is that two things can be true at the same time. Better Together did hold many town halls over the past year and seek input from citizens, and yet its rollout of its initiative petition and initial response to questions still felt like a top-down, paternalistic affair to many in the region.
Some critics did miss out on taking an active part in the public process over the past few years, and yet their questions on the proposal that is now before us still deserve to be answered.
Some people simply want to stop the merger. Some elements of the Better Together proposal give off an air of corruption.
You can be pro-merger, as I am, and still believe the Better Together proposal must be improved, which I do. The organizers of the pro-merger effort thought they were starting a campaign, and instead, a debate broke out. That’s not a bad thing.
Two things can be true at the same time.
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EDITOR’S NOTE: Former Mayor Vincent Schoemehl’s name was misspelled in an earlier version of this column.