How to Have an Argument

I’ve been re-reading the Lane Winslow series by Iona Whishaw. It’s a delightful series about a former British spy who settles in a tiny community in British Columbia to escape her wartime memories. As in every small town mystery series, the idyllic peace is regularly disturbed by the appearance of a dead body.

There are quirky characters, exuberant children, interesting back stories and, eventually, a cheerful puppy. There’s a romance that takes several books to begin to flourish. And, of course, in each book there is a mystery to solve, almost always relating back to some event or events from WWII.

Like all well-written books, the stories make important points: war is devastating, even to those who survive it; suspicion and hatred of a person or people because of the color of their skin or nation of origin is poisonous to the hater as well as the hated; no person should be relegated to a specific role based on gender; blaming groups of people for our troubles because of their                                        (fill in the blank with appearance, faith, political beliefs, sexual orientation, etc.) is a waste of time—bad things happen due bad luck, bad politics, bad personal decisions (our own or another’s) or some combination thereof, and fixating on blame just keeps us from focusing on potential solutions.

But mostly the stories are a pleasant escape.

Normally, I read a chapter or two of whatever book I’m enjoying at the time, before nodding off. If it’s a really, really good book that I’m reading for the first time, I may stay up late because I just can’t wait to find out what happens next. For my re-reads, however, I already know “what happens next,” and reading is just a way to slow down in preparation for sleeping.

(By the way, if you’re looking for your next good read, check out the recommendations on my newly refurbished goodreads Author Page.)

But lately I’m staying up late and then waking at 3:00 am wondering if it’s too early to get my first cup of coffee and dive back into whichever book I’m currently re-reading.

This is not healthy.

So why do I find myself obsessing over the process of marching through the Iona Whishaw series?

The answer, I think, is clear from my description a few paragraphs ago: these books are a pleasant escape.

I’m hiding out, escaping from the headlines and social media that scream fear and vitriol.

Fair warning: this newsletter is long, and about to get political. The political arena feels all consuming in 2025, and I’m trying, like everyone else, to figure out how to navigate this brave new world. The uncertainty is exhausting: tariffs are on, then they’re off; the federal workforce is being drastically downsized, or not; courts have stopped the spending freeze, but the government is ignoring the court order . . . . You’re living in the same world, so you know whereof I speak. If you’d prefer to just enjoy my recommendation of the Iona Whishaw series and leave it at that, you can stop reading here. Next month’s newsletter will be back to news about Two Over Easy All Day Long, including an upcoming giveaway, and more lighthearted ponderings.

I think it’s okay, for a while, to escape into the little pleasures life offers (at least, if you can, if you haven’t just lost your job, been deported, lost funding for your research, etc.). To simply be.

But for me at least, eventually I’ll have to re-engage. This is life, and I have a responsibility to be part of it.

If you are a person of my political proclivities, that means seeking out those in my community who are being hurt by current political actions, and doing what I can to alleviate their pain. And reaching out to my elected representatives to voice my opinions about new and proposed policies. I know I will find others walking that path beside me, including some who are, surprisingly, not of my “political proclivities” on all issues.

But here’s the part I’m assiduously hiding from: “engaging” sometimes means having an argument.

I don’t shy away from arguments in my fiction; good writing demands conflict. If you’ve read Two Over Easy All Day Long, you know the characters grapple with internal conflict and conflict with each other.

But in real life, I hate even mild disagreements.

So it is with some trepidation that I offer thoughts on . . .

How to Have an Argument

• Listen as much as you speak

•  Do NOT have arguments online

• Focus on common ground

Most of all:

• Don’t believe the rhetoric.

Yes, these are pretty darn self-evident. And yes, focusing on common ground
may feel like an insurmountable task. Our divisions are so significant, we’re told. We’ll never overcome our differences, we’re told.

Don’t believe the rhetoric.

Here’s an example. The headlines say recent polls showed a majority of Americans approve of the current president’s actions so far. But if you unpack it, you’ll see these numbers: 37% strongly approve of his performance, while 40% strongly disapprove. That leaves 23% who have more nuanced opinions. And then there’s the fact that 74% of the Americans polled disapprove of the pardon of the January 6 rioters who committed violence. 74% must of course include some of those who said they strongly approve overall, which means they don’t “strongly approve” of all the actions since taking office. And after the pollsters dug further and asked about specific actions (tariffs, immigration, inflation, etc.), the nuances were even more
pronounced.[i]

We are not, and have never been, a homogenous nation or even a nation where half of us think in lockstep with one party’s dogma and half hews to the other party line.

So I think there is hope for us after all, hope that we can forge community out of what we are being told is hopeless division.

But only if we’re willing to talk to each other, to have an argument or at least a frank conversation.

I'll start.

In the remainder of this newsletter, I’m going to bring up three contentious subjects, tell you what I think our "common ground" might be, and then, if you feel differently, invite you to tell me your perspective and what you think I might be missing. 

(But please please please and for good measure pretty please don't post angry comments on this newsletter or on social media—though I always appreciate an Attagirl! Send me an email, and let's have a conversation. Better yet, if you know me personally, let's get a cup of coffee and talk.)

Immigration

I assume I’m stating the obvious when I say that there is no common ground between myself and a person who asserts all Mexicans are                                                             
(I won’t dignify the slurs by repeating them). On the other hand, I don’t have much use for people who suggest all immigrants are virtuous victims of circumstance.

But I don’t believe most of us espouse either extreme, at least if we think about what we have personally observed and experienced, rather than allowing ourselves to be reduced to talking points pre-selected by politicians and amplified by social media.

Which means there is common ground, for most of us, on the topic of immigration law and border enforcement.

For example, I agree with those calling for greater border control that: there are people trafficking in drugs and humans over our borders, and that must be stopped; and there are gangs that have been “imported” from other countries that are responsible for some horrific crimes, and that must be stopped, too.[ii] (Let us not forget, however, that we have plenty of homegrown gangs, and plenty of horrific crimes committed by people born and raised here).

And it is my hope that many of the people calling for tougher enforcement of our borders would agree with me that most immigrants, both documented and undocumented, are ordinary people who came to America to make a better life for themselves and their families, and that most immigrants are a hard-working and critical component of our economy.

And lest we get too caught up in the characterization of immigrants only according to the color of their skin or whether they arrived from south of the US border, remember that, as envisioned in the movie The Sound of Music, the Von Trapp family were undocumented immigrants seeking asylum in Switzerland and then the US.

(The true story is a bit different, but the idea remains: fleeing to the United States to escape violence or natural disasters or poverty, with or without the often years-long wait for authorizing documents, is quintessentially American.)

In other words, there is a common foundation from which we can discuss the issues surrounding immigration law and border control, if we ignore the rhetoric that tells us Republicans believe all immigrants are monsters and Democrats believe all immigrants are saints.

Environmental Stewardship

Switching to another topic, there can be little common ground between someone like me who believes the 97% of climate scientists who say drastic action is needed to prevent irreversible and devastating climate change,[iii] and someone who believes the idea of climate change is a hoax dreamed up by “radical leftists.”

But, again, I don’t think most of us reside in either extreme.

I can agree that sweeping environmental protections should take into account the individuals affected by those changes. Individuals and communities that rely on coal mining should not summarily have their livelihoods ripped away, for example; public and private partnerships should ensure a transition to more sustainable industries.[iv] And I believe that if EVs provide any hope for reducing carbon emissions, we need to make them truly affordable for average people, with charging stations as ubiquitous as gas stations, and we need to address the carbon footprint of manufacturing EVs.

And it is my hope that those opposed to some parts of Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act would nevertheless agree that we should continue to develop fossil fuel energy alternatives.

And I hope we can all agree that we need to reduce single-use plastic, that it is not acceptable to find in the ocean an island of plastic that is twice the size of Texas (and growing).[v]

In short, I think tree-huggers and conservatives should be able to have a productive argument about environmental stewardship and the government’s role in ensuring protections for the earth on which we all depend, a conversation that that starts with our shared beliefs.

As long as we set aside the rhetoric.

Federal Spending and Separation of Powers

Last but definitely not least, I think most of us have long suspected that the federal government is bloated and overdue for a serious overhaul, that the feds tend to hand out money willy nilly to whatever pet project each congressional representative wants or whichever project has the most generous lobbyists.

And I think (I hope) very few of us believe freezing all government spending, with no notice, was an acceptable way to start that process, or that it was reasonable to hand over the process to an unelected, unvetted individual with absolutely no expertise in “right-sizing.”

At this point, it is likely we all know someone hurt by the spending freeze, because that action didn’t just hurt “special interests” (but aren’t we all special in our own way?); the freeze was devastating to small farmers on contracts with the federal government, Head Start providing childcare to the children of low-income working parents, Meals on Wheels meeting essential needs for seniors, and so many more ordinary Americans who rely on federal funding just to survive.[vi]

And funding remains frozen for some service providers, even after the Executive Order was rescinded (maybe?) and judges blocked the order.[vii]

Just as importantly, unless you truly believe our country would be better off run by a single person with no restrictions on his power (i.e. a dictatorship), the spending freeze and other recent government actions were in violation of the constitutional checks and balances that are designed to prevent any one branch of government from seizing all power.

On this, more than any other topic, I think it is vitally important that we talk to each other.

This newsletter is already too long and too political, but since I’ve started, I’m going to finish. Senator Angus King, an Independent from Maine, opposed the confirmation of Russell Vought to the OMB on the basis that Vought was a principal author of Project 2025, the tome that envisions, among other things, eliminating or ignoring the constitutional separation of powers, and granting absolute power to the president.

Senator King gave a nod to the almost universal frustration with the federal government, and then explained his opposition to the unified power proposals in Project 2025:

The cumbersomeness, the slowness, the clumsiness is built into our system. The framers were so fearful of concentrated power that they designed a system that would be hard to operate. And the heart of it was the separation of power between various parts of the government. The whole idea . . . was that no part of the government, no one person, no one institution had or could ever have a monopoly on power. 

Why? Because it's dangerous. History and human nature tells us that. This division of power as annoying and inefficient as it can be . . . is an essential feature of the system, not a bug. It's an essential, basic feature of the system, designed to protect our freedoms.

The speech in its entirety is worth a read (and I was so taken by its eloquence I included an even longer excerpt below).[viii]

But that isn’t the main reason I’ve included such a lengthy quote from Senator King.

I believe this speech is useful to the idea of having productive arguments
because Senator King is an Independent.
Not a Democrat, not a Republican.
Senator King’s very existence as an elected official
points to what is still possible—
independent thinking, not party dogma;
independent ideas, not screaming memes.

With that in mind, I encourage myself and anyone else who has made it this far in the newsletter to go out and Have an Argument. By all means, let us first rest our hearts in good books and good food and whatever else soothes our hearts. And then, so fortified, let us respectfully engage with our fellow citizens.

I want to be clear: I am not simply advocating Kumbaya, why can't we all just get along, kindness matters, etc. (though Kumbaya is a lovely, healing song, and we should try to get along, and kindness does matter, of course). There is widespread agreement, outside the current administration and its immediate supporters, that we are facing a direct assault on the checks and balances the founders built into our democracy. We must find a way to work together to protect the form of governance that in turn protects our right to, among other things, argue with each other about how best to run the country. I think that begins with us laying down the verbal swords currently aimed at each other, finding common ground, and then turning our joint efforts toward protecting this glorious but surprisingly fragile experiment we call democracy.

Ultimately, I think the extent of our divisions are or may be largely manufactured. I don’t think most Republicans are crowing over vanquishing evil libs who are out to destroy us with some combination of communism, environmentalism, and DEI, and I don’t think most Democrats are convinced all Republicans are racists, misogynists, and homophobes.

Don’t believe the rhetoric.

I think we are all hurting from the divisions,
and in our woundedness we are blind
to the real problems we face,
and the potential solutions
that can grow out of our shared beliefs,
our common ground.

We’ll never know unless we try. 

[i] https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2025/02/07/trumps-second-term-early-ratings-and-expectations/

[ii] The Pope, in his recent rebuke of the US’s mass deportation plans, agreed that “nations have the right to defend themselves and keep their communities safe from criminals.” https://apnews.com/article/pope-trump-migration-09a89091f8e7dc3270099f0947d04e90. That opinion is shared by many immigrants living in border towns, as well. https://www.npr.org/2025/02/11/nx-s1-5289254/arizonas-new-democratic-senator-is-latino-but-backs-tough-action-on-immigration. The common ground ends, though, with the new law that doesn’t require conviction of a crime for deportation, but rather allows government agents to deport people based solely on an allegation of criminal activity. https://www.opb.org/article/2025/01/29/what-is-the-laken-riley-act-a-look-at-the-first-bill-trump-just-signed/#:~:text=The%20Laken%20Riley%20Act%20will,signing%20at%20the%20White%20House. (““In this bill, if a person is so much as accused of a crime, if someone wants to point a finger and accuse someone of shoplifting, they would be rounded up and put into a private detention camp and sent out for deportation without a day in court.”) The freedom from government agents swooping in and making you disappear in the middle of the night, without any chance to prove your innocence, is or should be a basic human right afforded by democracy, as is the concept of “innocent until proven guilty”—regardless of citizenship or immigration status.

[iii] https://science.nasa.gov/climate-change/faq/do-scientists-agree-on-climate-change/#:~:text=Yes%2C%20the%20vast%20majority%20of,global%20warming%20and%20climate%20change.

[iv] I am aware that “transition to more sustainable industries” is not as simple as it sounds, as discussed in this article about the problems with free trade with China: https://www.npr.org/2025/02/11/g-s1-47352/why-economists-got-free-trade-with-china-so-wrong

[v] https://theoceancleanup.com/great-pacific-garbage-patch/?gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAiAwaG9BhAREiwAdhv6Y77oX0enMkI-pLKFfaonV8QWljBS5wLtDSrmwxRAkTY9LnXZQE_spRoC5_gQAvD_BwE

[vi] https://sustainableagriculture.net/blog/release-unlawful-federal-funding-freeze-causing-confusion-and-harm-on-farms-and-in-communities-nationwide/; https://www.mealsonwheelsamerica.org/learn-more/national/press-room/news/2025/01/28/meals-on-wheels-america-issues-statement-on-potential-impact-on-meals-on-wheels-programs-from-freeze-on-federal-grants-and-loans-outlined-in-omb-memo

[vii] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/04/us/politics/grant-funding-freeze-nonprofits.html

[viii] https://www.king.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/king-to-senate-colleagues-now-is-the-time-to-establish-a-redlinethe-constitution-itself#:~:text=Our%20oath%20was%20not%20to,assault%20in%20our%20nation's%20history 

*****

A bit more of Senator King’s speech:

“Madison put it this way . . . , ‘if men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither internal nor external controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this -- you must first enable the government to control the governed.’ That's the function. And in the next place, oblige it to control itself. 

Our framers understood this. They were deep students of history and also human nature. And they had just won a lengthy and brutal war against the abuses inherent in concentrated governmental power, George III. The universal principle of human nature they understood was this -- power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. That's a universal principle, all over the world throughout history. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. 

So how did they answer the question? How did they answer the question who will guard the guardians? They answered it by building into the basic structure of our government two essential safeguards. One was regular elections. In other words, returning the control of the government to the people on regular scheduled elections . . .  [And] the other essential safeguard is the deliberate division of power between the branches and levels of government.

This is important, Mr. President. The cumbersomeness, the slowness, the clumsiness is built into our system. The framers were so fearful of concentrated power that they designed a system that would be hard to operate. And the heart of it was the separation of power between various parts of the government. The whole idea, the whole idea was that no part of the government, no one person, no one institution had or could ever have a monopoly on power. 

Why? Because it's dangerous. History and human nature tells us that. This division of power as annoying and inefficient as it can be, particularly to the executive, I know because I used to be a governor, is an essential feature of the system, not a bug. It's an essential, basic feature of the system, designed to protect our freedoms. 

Now, this contrasts with the normal structure of a private business, where authority is purposefully concentrated, allowing swift and sometimes arbitrary action. But a private business does not have the army, and the President of the United States is not the CEO of America. 

Power is shared, principally between the President and this body, this Congress, both houses. In fact, this herky-jerkiness, the two houses, the war power divided between the President and Congress, this unwieldy structure is the whole idea. No one has or should ever have all the power. 

So the concern I'm raising today isn't some academic exercise or manifestation of political jealousy or abstract institutional loyalty. It's the guts of the system, designed to protect us from the inevitable. And I mean inevitable abuse of an authoritarian state . . .
It's the guts of our protection. In fact, this clumsy system is the main spring of our freedom. By the way, it's worked so far, so far . . .”

Images by: paulacobleigh from Getty Images Pro (arguing tortoises); arifarca from Pixabay (coffee); We the People by Unsplash.