Keller @ Large: The Humanity Aspect
BOSTON (CBS) -- My colleague Michael Hurley has an excellent column up right now on cbs-boston.com about the disgusting story of sexual misconduct by football star Peyton Manning when he was a college student back in the 1990s.
Hurley documents the rush to social media to defend manning from fans who can't seem to differentiate sexual assault from a disputed officiating call. "Somewhere in there," he writes, "the humanity aspect has been lost."
You could say the same about the presidential race.
Many democrats who less than eight years ago rallied behind a candidate who promised to try to heal the divisions between us and end the culture of political demonization are now backing Bernie Sanders, the most aggressive exploiter of class warfare in a presidential campaign since Alabama Gov. George Wallace back in the 1970s.
Many republicans who spent the last seven years trashing president Obama as a divisive ideologue manipulating low-information voters are now backing Donald Trump, the epitome of everything they say they hate about Obama.
I suppose it's part of human nature to get angry, to be bitter, to seek revenge, to scapegoat and stereotype. But I always thought the goal of the good person was to not let those reflexes consume you, but instead to place hope, thoughtfulness, conciliation and empathy in the driver's seat.
Maybe those qualities--what Michael Hurley calls "the humanity aspect"--will eventually win out in this campaign. Maybe even Sanders, Trump and other candidates will manifest them. Actually, now would be a great time to see that happen.
