It may Involve mud slinging, but we're still trying to make the world a better place.

I followed a Facebook thread the other day that was initiated by someone who said she wouldn’t be voting for Bernie Sanders after all because of his “bros’ ” nasty “memes.” Then someone else told me he wouldn’t be voting for Elizabeth Warren after all because several of her staff members claimed Bernie had told her in a private meeting that “a woman can’t get elected president.” He, of course, denied that he’d ever said this.

A reluctant Facebook responder—saying she didn’t like engaging in these kinds of discussions on that platform—stated that politics has always been nasty and mud slinging in an election was to be expected, particularly when campaigns seemingly last forever. But that was no reason to abandon the candidate whose policies and values are the ones you endorse. Once the mud starts getting slung it really diminishes the character of those doing the slinging more than the candidates, but unfortunately, it also impugns the organization or cause to whom the characters belong.

Those of us on the left are very familiar with this scenario in our organizations and movements that seek to make the world a better place (not to say that the right and alt-right don’t know how to mud sling, it’s just that there’s no pretense that it’s to make the world a better place—just their own pocketbooks). Because the United States is such a massive country, with such a massive and diverse set of ideological interests, it’s always been extremely difficult to bring together those interests, who even though they share an understanding of the kind of world we want, don’t necessarily share a methodology about how to get there.

 I’ve been involved in community organizing all my adult life. I’ve witnessed what happens when groups let their sense of solidarity be eroded by special interests, misunderstandings, and battles among egos. The divide in the environmental community between those who identified as “deep ecologists” and those as “social ecologists” (who helped define the environmental justice movement), was bitter and self-defeating as they argued over how our degraded forests should be managed while they continued to decline and burn and our communities suffered.

There is an example of one of these failures right now in another coalition of groups with whom I’ve worked. I’m not going to be specific; naming names would only contribute to the conflict that I’m trying to help mitigate by writing this essay. This particular conflict has been extant for some time, but has recently been exacerbated by government policies that are immanently threatening to impact all of our lives.

Just as in the Warren/Sanders case, activists of integrity and commitment comprise this movement. And just as in the Warren/Sanders case, there are disagreements  about methodology. But when one of the activist groups continues to try to impugn the integrity and commitment of the other members of this community, it discredits the movement as a whole. It transfers validation to those interests trying to enact the policies the community is trying to dismantle.

Although the group claims it is respectful in its public statements, this is far from the truth. In letters to newspaper editors, in e-mails, and in press releases that address the issues that the entire community is dealing with, it often disparages the work of the other groups and makes misleading, and even false, accusations that constantly confuse the public over the basis of their criticism.

Warren and Sanders seem to have taken a step back from confrontation after witnessing how the media played up their so-called dispute (CNN’s moderation of the debate was disgraceful—they, more than “bros” or “memes” are the problem) and the public sighed in exasperation. The conflict I’ve been describing is being played out in a smaller, more insular world here in New Mexico but the ramifications of its dysfunction loom large. What will it take for this community to come together? I would hope that those who believe they are always right and everyone else is wrong will eventually recognize that this leads to the distortion of facts, blanket accusations, paranoia, and outright lies to support a destructive position.