Wehner and Capehart

I always like hearing what Jonathan Capehart has to say on the PBS NewsHour. Last Friday (I’m catching up), Capehart was paired with Peter Wehner, a contributing editor at The Atlantic and a former speechwriter for presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush. On point after point, the two were in agreement. But then they diverged.

John Yang asked how, as we move into “the holidays,” Capehart and Wehner handle uncomfortable (i.e., politically charged) conversations. First, an excerpt from Wehner’s response:

In my experience, I don’t obviously do this perfectly, but when it’s worked, it is when you have a conversation with someone and you genuinely listen to them, and you seek to learn their story, to find out why they have turned out where they are.

So it’s not the reflex to turn it into a debate. It’s rather to try and connect with people on a human level, and then to remind ourselves not to dehumanize, and politics is not defining to who we are. It matters. We’re in politics because we think it does matter, but, in the end, it’s not the most important thing, and we have to have civility in that approach.

And Capehart:

I would say conversations are two-way streets, that it is not just incumbent upon, say, someone from my political perspective to sit and listen to the other person.

The other person needs to sit and listen to me, sit and listen to us. And we are not, I don’t think, duty-bound or even morally required to sit and listen to someone who says things that denigrates our humanity, that is offensive to us. We have every right to push back.

It’s on that person whether they are the ones who are going to listen and understand where we’re coming from.

Indeed.

[I’ve added a hyphen to the PBS transcript.]