Who's nice? Who cares!

Most people are 'nice'. At least that's what most people would have you believe. People on both sides of the American political landscape can be nice. People from various religions, ethnicities, and cultures can be friendly and welcoming. Even when neo-nazis clashed with counter-protesters in Charlottesville it was said there were fine people on both sides. So if there are so many perfectly fine and nice people all around, why are we so angry with each other?

A lot of the problem lies in how you define nice. I grew up in Minnesota, where people are famous for being 'Minnesota nice'. To people from elsewhere that means Minnesotans are friendly and welcoming and always have nice things to say. But if you live in Minnesota and are honest about it, it means people are afraid of confrontation. Minnesota nice means you never say anything bad to someone's face - but you certainly talk smack about them behind their back. Minnesota nice means you smile and serve dinner to family and don't interrupt your racist uncle from spewing hatred at the table (maybe his grandparents were from Wisconsin or something). Minnesota nice means you welcome in refugees but later complain about how our 'society' is getting worse - but they make sure not to specify it's the people with dark skin they think are the problem. Minnesota nice reflects the problem and distinction that needs to be made: people are mostly nice in person, face to face, but what they think, how they act, and especially how they vote can be very different.

It's nice if your MAGA-loving neighbor helps you cut up the tree that fell in your yard during a big storm. But are they really 'nice' if they want to ban Muslims from coming into this country? It's nice that your rich uncle helps you get a good summer job during college. But is it nice that he donates to Super PACs which support candidates who want to eliminate our social safety net so we can cut capital gains taxes? It's nice that Dorothy at the super market checkout smiles at everyone and helps organize food drives at church. But is it nice she votes for Congressmen who want to restrict women's bodily autonomy and repeal the right to gay marriage?

If you judge peoples' niceness by how they treat you personally, then most people are pretty nice (especially if you're a white person like most other people are in this country). But if you judge people on their votes and their actions and how those things affect the disadvantaged and minorities in our society, then you get a completely different picture. People can be nice and yet filled with hate. People can be nice, yet still take pleasure in the suffering of others. People can be nice and yet do nothing as evil happens in the world. When it comes to politics, nice and good are very different measures.

So how should we define nice? Maybe we shouldn't worry about it. Maybe we should stop trying to define people and only worry about their actions and how we respond. We don't need to demonize people who are trying to subvert democracy, enshrine bigotry into law, and maintain the systemic racism throughout our institutions and society. But we do need to fight them. And we don't need to be nice about it. We just need to be right.