By ROBERT JUMPER
Tutiyi (Snowbird) and Clyde, N.C.
In 1972, a band called Stealers Wheel released a song written by Gerry Rafferty and Joe Egan titled “Stuck in the Middle with You”. It was a parody song, but not nonsensical, and it meant more to many of us than Rafferty and Egan intended.
They wrote the song as a whimsical narrative about what they called “a dull, pretentious record label party full of fake industry executives” and being surrounded by “insincere people” (American Songwriter).
This struck me as a model for much of what we are going through in modern society today. I feel like a vast majority of people in the membership of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and those not of EBCI descent are in the “stuck in the middle” state. We are surrounded by a small percentage of people at the far ends of the political and ideological spectrums. They are like the poles of a magnet, trying to pull those of us in the middle north or south, or, in political speak, “to the left or to the right.”
I live and vote in Haywood County for municipal, state, and federal elections. By heritage, I vote in Snowbird in tribal elections. And I don’t miss the opportunity to vote in either, because I feel that any election of leadership that might make laws that impact me should receive my voice on the matter.
There has never been a shortage of childishness in politics. Name-calling, berating, and verbal challenges to the integrity of candidates and those who support them are commonplace in modern society. Politicians have engaged in the practice of insult politics for centuries. For my part, I think it is a disgusting way to distract the public, the constituents, the voters from the things that matter: the qualifications of candidates and their plans to make our lives better.
I have watched with great interest and sadness the race between candidates Michael Whatley and Roy Cooper for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Thom Tillis. While a few advertisements are highlighting the capabilities of these candidates, most ads are attack ads, trying to “cut down” the reputation of the other candidate to garner our votes.
The game of “Tug of War” is simple. You get one team on one end of the rope and an opposing team on the other end. Typically, there will be a mud pit between the two teams (a simple line can be drawn on the ground to move a flag tied to the middle of the rope across it, but that is not as much fun). So, the teams attempt to drag each other through the mud. The team that gets all the other team into the mud wins. Sound familiar? It should. That is exactly how modern politics works. It isn’t about highlighting your strengths as a candidate. It is about calling out the other candidate’s weaknesses.
In the town of Waynesville over the past month, there has been a debate as to exactly what free speech is and how far an individual or group can go in communicating its message to the public, and where free speech ends and harassment begins. One side of the argument is bringing signs and bodies to do a public protest in the courtyard downtown. The issue is that some of the group gets in the main street roadway, sometimes blocking traffic and shouting, which, in turn, enflames the passions of some of the motorists who might have an opposing viewpoint. Stuck in the middle are those just trying to get from one place to the other. Daytime schedules are tight for most people, and they need to get from Point A to Point B as quickly and safely as possible. They are not on the roadway to participate in political debate, and it is unlikely that their bosses would accept that as a reason for being late either. It isn’t about keeping anyone from their right to free speech. They just don’t want to be held hostage by it.
As I mentioned before, there is nothing new about negative, mean-spirited campaigning. There is also nothing new about news media exploiting it. Look at this excerpt from an article on the Merriam-Webster website:
Lewis Cass, who ran unsuccessfully as the Democratic candidate for president in 1848 (he lost to Zachary Taylor), did not receive so much invective as to make him a particularly notable candidate. But he did manage to earn the dislike of Horace Greeley, and Greeley happened to own a newspaper, The New York Tribune (and was not shy about using it for political ends). The Tribune referred to Cass as a man “whose life has been spent in grasping greedily after vast tracts of land, buying up large estates round Detroit, and selling them out in small town lots, huckster fashion, at immense profits to tradesmen and immigrants.”
Yet Greeley appeared to save his truly memorable insults for his personal correspondence. In a letter to Schuyler Colfax in 1848, he wrote of the candidate as “that pot-bellied, mutton-headed, cucumber-soled Cass.” Potbellied is fairly self-explanatory and known to many people; mutton-headed refers to an oafish or dimwitted state; cucumber-soled has not, to the best of our knowledge, been used by anyone save Greeley, and its meaning remains shrouded in mystery.
More colorful language has been offered to us in the community over the centuries, offered by politicians at every level of government, and most notably the current President of the United States. His favorite tool of torment is adding an adjective like “Crooked”, “Sleepy”, “Slow”, “Little”, or Laffin’” to his opponents’ names. These seem particularly childish and nasty when you realize that they are coming from the highest seat in the federal government.
Back in the day, we could rely on the media to clean up the mess for us. There has always been some media bias when it comes to politics, typically close to election days, but no more. Much of the news media, be it local, regional, or national, has gone all in on crafting social agendas and exploiting special interests to create an environment for themselves that will benefit their worldview and their pocketbooks. Tribal government news organizations used to, and maybe still do, get looked down on as organizations controlled by governments and therefore inherently biased. But with the help of dedicated managers and editors, and forward-thinking tribal leaders, tribal media operations are working together to embed media and First Amendment protections into governing documents. On the other hand, owners, publishers, and editors of commercial news media outlets are free to create their operations “in their own image”. In other words, if the owner has a political agenda, it is a good bet that the crafting of articles and commentary (they are two separate things, just so you know) will be affected by the owner’s beliefs, regardless of the facts. Publishers and editors have enormous ability to guide public opinion, even down to what they select to cover or include in what they publish, and what they choose to ignore.
All this to say to my fellow middle-of-the-road crowd: we may be confused, bewildered, and boxed in, but at least we are not alone. Resist the pull to be polarized by the thinking of the far extremes. Choose your news sources judiciously. The expansion of Artificial Intelligence has made finding the reality of an accusation even more challenging. Diligence and discernment are your friends, as are prayer and a good sense of humor.
In the words of Rafferty and Egan, “Yes, I’m stuck in the middle with you. And I am wondering what it is I should do. It’s so hard to keep this smile from my face. Losing control, yeah, I’m all over the place. Trying to make some sense of it all, but I can see, it makes no sense at all. Is it cool to go to sleep on the floor? Because I don’t think I can take any more. Clowns to the left of me. Jokers to the right. Here I am, stuck in the middle with you.”
