The Istist

Beware of the “istist”. What is an istist? An istist is someone who labels someone else as an “ist” in order to diminish or discredit that person. They call another person, a racist, or a sexist, or a misogynist, so they don’t have to deal with that person directly as a human being; they can pre-judge and then dismiss that person with all of the negative stereotypes that come with the “ist” that they just labelled him with. The cousin of the “istist” is the “phobephobe”. The phobephobe works just like the istist except they reduce the person down to a phobe – calling them a homophobe, or a transphobe, or an Islamaphobe for the exact same reasons – to reduce that person down to the base characteristics of the phobe so they do not have to see him as a full human being. Technically, you could be a phobeist or an istphobe, as well.

Ironically, istists are doing to others what they are accusing the other people of doing when they call them an ist or a phobe. Being a racist or a sexist means that you reduce other people down to their race or their gender in order to diminish them. Racists or sexists do not see the full expression of the human being; they only see the race or the gender of the person. That is exactly what an “istist” does – reduces other people down to the mere characteristics of the ist. They think, ‘you’re a racist or a sexist or a homophobe, so I no longer have to consider your opinion or point of view. You are no longer a worthy person.’

They don’t see the person they called the “ist” as a complete human being. They see them only as the ist or the phobe, and all the stereotypes that come with that. It is one of the most demeaning things that you can do to somebody – calling them, a racist, a sexist, a homophobe or a misogynist, especially without evidence, and that is done far too often on our current society. It has become the bastion for pseudo-intellectual and pseudo-socially aware people. People who do not have the intellectual capacity to see and understand another person as the full human being that they are so they must stuff them into this derogatory box.

All that being said, I must check myself to see if I am doing to the istist what the istist does to ist? Am I reducing the istist down to his ist? Have I become an ististist? And the person who recognizes that in me, are they now an istististist? That is the absurdity of the calling another person an ist or a phobe because ultimately you become what you are rejecting about the other person.

We see this “ist” pathology when it comes to American politics. We are being trained to hate people on the other side of the political spectrum simply because they are in the other side of the political spectrum. So, Democrats are being trained to hate Republicans simply because they are Republicans, and Republicans are being trained to hate Democrats simply because they are Democrats. They are stereotyped into that political party in order to be dismissed and hated. It is one thing to disagree with or even dislike the leaders of a political party, whether it’s Joe Biden or Donald Trump or Kamala Harris or JD Vance or Barack Obama, but it’s another thing to hate an average American citizen, who just happens to vote for the opposite party.

I only feel this division of hate in our country when I turn on the TV or click on the Internet and listen to politicians. I don’t see it in my everyday life. I know people who vote Republican in a straight-line ticket and people who vote Democrat in straight-line ticket, and I can say unequivocally that there are good people on both sides of the political divide. The problem is that so much time, money and media coverage has been spent by both sides to demonize the other political candidates that that demonization is trickling down to the actual voters. We saw that when Hillary Clinton called Trump voters, “a basketful of deplorables”. You’re not a deplorable person if you want to have a secure border, low taxes, and no foreign wars, but in Hillary Clinton’s eyes, a vote for Trump means that you are a horrible person. And that’s where the hate comes from. When you can strip someone of their humanity, when you can reduce them down to a single characteristic, it becomes that much easier to hate them.

Radio personality Howard Stern put this pathology on display this week when he said, “I don't hate the guy [Trump]. I hate the people who vote for him [Trump]. I think they're stupid. I do. I'll be honest with you; I have no respect for you." So, here is a guy who decided to hate 74 million people he has never met simply because they voted for a politician who he, in the same comment, admitted that he doesn’t hate himself. In one broad brush, he diminished, discredited and dismissed 74 million American citizens who have legitimate concerns about the direction of this country. Stern exposed how small minded he is.

An actual reasonable and intellectual person would say, where have we gone wrong politically in our country where 74 million people are turning to Donald Trump as their leader? Are the 74 million people who voted for Trump collectively wrong, are they all evil, or have the current and previous leaders of our country let the American citizens down so much that this many people feel a need to turn to someone like Donald Trump?

We can hate the political beliefs of the people on the other side of the political aisle, but I believe in my heart that most people who hold different political views than myself, who are going to vote for a different candidate than I do, are not people to hate. I see them on a day-to-day basis. I rarely run into a person living their life, who inspires an emotion of hate in me. When I go to a grocery store, or a restaurant, or a ballgame, I do not find very many people to hate. I don’t. And we only start to hate each other when we find out that their politics are different than our own, because at that point, we can reduce the person down to their political beliefs, and that’s it.

And the problem in America is that the people who are in charge – the uni-party – they want us to hate each other, because the more we hate on each other, the less we are aware of what they’re doing to the voters of both political parties – the less we will notice how much they are screwing us to the wall. We spend so much time arguing back-and-forth with the average person with different political beliefs about whose fault our $35 trillion national debt is, that we overlook that both political parties are responsible for that debt. Presidents from both parties added trillions of dollars to the debt, congresses led by both parties added trillions of dollars to the debt. The more we hate on each other, the less we notice the grift and corruption in Washington, DC. That’s the way our politicians want it.

Ultimately, we are all human beings, and not one of us is perfect, or blameless, or sinless. We all have internal biases and at the same time, we are all tempted to judge. We can all find reasons to hate each other. We can reduce anyone’s sins down to an “ist” or a “phobe”, if we want to diminish and hate on that person. But it is much better to see each other as full and complete human beings that we all are – a mix of good and bad, both our sins and our virtues, our hopes and our fears, our prejudices and our selflessness, our small-mindedness and our big heartedness – our humanity. To quote Ferris Bueller quoting John Lennon, “I don’t believe in Beatles, I believe in me.” I don’t believe in ists and phobes; I believe in you and me.

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Mr. Garrett is a graduate of Princeton University, and a former NFL player, coach, and executive. He has been a contributor to the website Real Clear Politics. He has recently published his first novel, No Wind.