My husband Rick Brookhiser and I met singing Renaissance religious music on street corners, which we did for twelve years weekly. It was something fundamental and beautiful that we shared. The group we belonged to, the Renaissance Street Singers, gave free concerts every Sunday. We sang on street corners and in the hallways of Grand Central (great acoustics!). We had responsive audiences, took no money, and got moved around by police.
Rick was a baritone with a lovely voice, I was a soprano. He said his job was writing for National Review. I am a lifelong liberal Democrat. At least, I said to myself, he’s a writer. Yet we have been married 44 years, only once voting for the same candidate (Giuliani, before he was crazy). We must have done something right. How?
Here are some of the rules we discovered for bipartisan living together.
(1) There are things we never say. Never begin a sentence, How could you think that? This is an instant sign of no respect.
(2) There are things we never do. At the top of the list is article thrusting — shoving something you believe in the other person’s face, when they haven’t asked to see it.
(3) We are not big drinkers, but it is still a useful rule to never drink and talk politics. You will say something offensive, guaranteed.
(4) Never argue online, or look at your partner’s or friend’s social-media posts. The internet tempts us to make quick reactions — and preserves the quick reactions of those we wish to think well of.
(5) We found that you can always talk about politics as a horse race: Gee, that was a mistake for your side. To lifelong pundits like Rick, this comes naturally, but anyone can do it.
(6) We learned, via painful experiences, what subjects we must simply avoid, and avoid them. For us, that is abortion.
(7) This was a perhaps controversial insight of mine. You can’t change another person’s mind. People do change sometimes, but they do it on their own. Stop trying to force the pace, and start listening instead.
(8) Our most important discovery came from the experience each of us had as cancer patients. We call it the chemotherapy test. When someone comes to visit you in the hospital when you’re getting chemotherapy, you don’t ask them whom they voted for.
Politics has become so frantic because it has taken the place of religion. It is also a weapon people use to express aggression or frustration. But it is a bad religion, and you shouldn’t unload your bad feelings on those you love. Rick and I will be discussing all this at the NRI Communicators Workshop in D.C., held July 12–13.