Mid-term elections next tipping point

By David Carlson

Are you feeling the ground shift under your feet? Has the last year left you feeling dizzy as American culture and our nation’s place in the world has shifted?

In 2000, Malcolm Gladwell popularized the concept of the tipping point. I think of a tipping point as the moment when a trend has enough momentum to bring a change that can’t be ignored.

An issue can build slowly, reaching a tipping point without much fanfare or awareness. But when the tipping point is reached, the change becomes obvious, whether we are ready for that change or not.

I thought of the tipping point recently as I found Bill Cosby’s advice book, “Fatherhood,” on my shelf. Cosby had been a voice for family values and responsible parenthood until the revelations of his decades-long sexual harassment of women surfaced.

But Cosby’s indiscretions might have been dismissed as a blip on our society’s screen until hundreds of similar and worse stories of harassment and abuse began to appear on a daily basis from within Hollywood, the Olympics, Washington, and particularly the Trump Administration. Looking back now, I now realize Cosby was just the tipping point.

Another tipping point recently has been reached on the world’s stage, although many Americans have not noticed the change. This is the tipping point related to climate change. As Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and other countries slip beneath the ocean’s rising tides, as Greenland and the Arctic regions are thawing at an alarming rate, the world knows it is time to act. Even war-torn Syria recently signed on to the Paris Climate Accords, leaving just one country — just one — failing to sign. That’s right; it’s the United States under the Trump administration.

There is further evidence that the tipping point of America’s influence in the world has recently been crossed. American presidents used to weigh their words about foreign policy with great care, as they knew that every leader in the world would study those pronouncements carefully and react accordingly. But that is now changing. Leaders in the Middle East have said that they can no longer put faith in American foreign policy, as that policy can shift dizzily with every one of Trump’s middle-of-the-night tweets.

Other observers of American culture sense that a third tipping point has been crossed with the school shooting in Florida. For the first time, we have not only the parents of students slain who are grieving and demanding change, but also students in schools across the country who are saying “enough is enough.”

It seems the entire country has suddenly realized that saying “our thoughts and prayers are with you, grieving parents” is lame and insulting. It is as if the country is waking from a bad dream, the majority of Americans now agreeing that putting the safety of our schools and other public spaces in the hands of the NRA and the gun manufacturers is as insane as it is intolerable.

By definition, tipping points signal changes that won’t be reversed. That is, we shouldn’t expect women ever again to accept abuse and harassment silently. Similarly, we shouldn’t expect the nations of the world to ignore all the evidence and agree with Trump that climate change really isn’t a problem.

If tipping points lead to other tipping points, we might ask, what will be the next major change in American culture? For everyone who is troubled by school shootings, harassment and abuse of women and ignoring climate change, the answer is simple. The next tipping point will be the mid-term elections this fall.

David Carlson of Franklin is a professor of philosophy and religion. Send comments to [email protected].