Provocation

When I worked with children, it seemed that one of their favorite pastimes was provoking one another. It was a fairly straightforward game; a child would pick their target, and then try to rouse them to fear or anger, such that the target would throw a punch, or otherwise assault them, at which point the provocateur would run to the nearest staff member loudly claiming to be the victim of an unprovoked attack. Their persistence in this was remarkable, in light of the fact that the entire scheme tended to hinge on the idea that we, as staff, didn't know who made a habit of provoking their peers. But of course we knew. Children tend to forget that adults were children once, and no matter how clever they thought that they were being, it was only new staffers who ever fell for it.

As is often the case, it turns out that a number of people have carried the practice with them into adulthood. But it also turns out that something of a cottage industry has sprung up around accusing people of being clever and/or negligent provocateurs. Massachusetts State Representative and Republican candidate for the United States Senate Jeff Diehl has leveled the charge against Senator Elizabeth Warren in the wake of a $500 being placed on Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. I'm surprised by the amount - one would think that it would be difficult to get someone to risk the federal pen for $500, especially given the difficulty of collecting (or even verifying that the offer is real) without being arrested.

Most of it strikes me as simple politics; making charges that one is unlikely to ever be called upon to prove as a form of direct negative campaigning. But there's also an element of motivated attribution to it all; the idea that people on the other side of a political divide have leaders who are both malicious and skilled at manipulating their slow-witted followers to violent criminal behavior without ever saying anything that they couldn't defend in a court of law. And in this, the charges and counter-charges have a tendency to serve all sides of a debate. State Representative Diehl can preach to the choir of his supporters about how much of a despicable villain Senator Warren is, and the Senator can do the same.

And perhaps this is how the political system we have perpetuates itself. By becoming a symbiosis of supposedly opposing forces, who despite their open disdain for one another, couldn't survive alone.