In the early 1980’s, the band Men At Work became known for a radio-friendly sound that made them, at least for a while, one of the biggest bands around the world. Towards the end of their period of radio dominance, they released a hit single called “It’s A Mistake” that, like many songs of the era, pointed to the dangers of increased brinksmanship within the Cold War dynamic between the United States and the Soviet Union that gave many Europeans (and others) fears of nuclear annihilation. In reality, it does not appear as if the song did any harm to the band’s prospects, at least not directly. For one, the band had another hit immediately afterwards that is still regarded highly, Dr. Heckel and Mr. Jive, and the band appears to have broken up only later on during the making of their third album when the band fractured apart. Also of note is that songs that expressed the fear of nuclear annihilation because of Cold War pressures were very common among a large variety of bands, though most of them non-American, as it happens, with songs like “99 Luftballoons,” “Russians,” “Melt With You,” and many others joining “It’s A Mistake” as being songs that mined the fears that the world would be destroyed in a nuclear Holocaust as a result of the overheated rhetoric between the United States and the Soviet Union. In the end, the Soviets imploded, and the United States was left alone, at least for a little while, as the world’s dominant superpower, for all of the uselessness that has brought us in terms of peace of mind.

What I would like to focus on today, though, is a different kind of mistake that many authors make when it comes to their works. I read many books, and a common thread that runs through many of them is that they severely misjudge their approach to their potential reading audience. Books I have read recently with as varied of subject matter as English grammar, epigenetics, and the authentic voices of ordinary Iranians have made the same basic and fundamental error of insulting readers on the right-of-center while seeking to demonstrate themselves as being acceptable to left-of-center audiences through the presentation of their material. Why is this a mistake? At present, the United States is a nation that is fundamentally divided, at least in terms of its electorate, into two increasingly hostile blocs of voters that each has roughly half of the vote and wins roughly half of the seats in Congress every election, with very little movement either way. Occasionally one party is slightly ahead and occasionally the other is, based on voter motivation, fraud, and turnout, however they are defined. In such an environment, it seems baffling that so many writers would assume (wrongly) that people whose political perspectives are right of center do not read and are not offended by insulting comments. Most of these writers have some sort of writing interest that involves political action. Science writers want their science research to be funded. Grammarians often have a fondness for public television and radio as a defense of education. Those who oppose the harmful sanctions on the nation of Iran want the people of Iran to be able to suffer less with the opening of free trade, with the benefits that would have towards safe medicine, safe infrastructure, and economic development for tens of millions of people who have been deeply isolated for decades.

As it happens, all of these aims are aims that could easily be promoted as bipartisan ones. There is no inherent reason why public television or its advocacy would need to be a partisan matter. Indeed, the survival of funding for NPR and PBS is more secure if such places are seen as being at least balanced and fair in their presentation of political matters and not devoted to the support of leftist political agendas. Likewise, science funding would appear to be easier to attain if the people looking for it do not go out of their way to offend numerous and powerful socially conservative interests which have been successful recently in taking down Roe vs. Wade, that stain upon the national conscience, given that many socially conservative people are open to the understanding that people can suffer needlessly and deeply, over generations, because of their bad behavior or the bad environment they have to deal with. “The sins of the father are visited upon the third and fourth generation” would appear to be relevant to epigenetics here, and something social conservatives could or would be willing to stand behind. Similarly, ending sanctions for Iran on a permanent basis is far easier of a task if such a task is viewed as a bipartisan effort rather than something promoted by leftist journos for the benefit of leftist activists within Iran. Cultivating a big tent approach to building a bipartisan coalition for one’s aims can only be a benefit if one wants to have enduring success in an age of narrow majorities and general gridlock, but so many writers are not remotely smart enough to realize that right-of-center readers (and voters) are potential members of issue-based coalitions despite their presence on the other side of the partisan divide. How are we to encourage people to behave intelligently as writers so as not to needlessly and provocatively offend potential friends and allies in efforts to win over left-of-center voters? Is it really necessary to offend the right in order to appeal to the left? And if so, is it worthwhile to view the left as being itself worthwhile as one’s political base for desired political efforts, since appealing to the right is far less difficult of a matter, namely being civil and polite to moral and religious sensibilities.

In such a deeply partisan world, it would be a mistake to view a narrow appeal to the left as being a good route to electoral success. Far better would be the tactical approach of Stephen Douglas in dividing the omnibus bill of the 1850 compromise and then getting different majorities to vote through the whole package because there were not enough people to vote through each of the laws individually. It would appear that in an age of gridlock that the best way to remove that gridlock would be to untangle unacceptable laws from each other and work with the few voices in the center that are capable of listening to arguments and being persuaded, rather than the many votes that will hate something simply because it comes from the other side. Why this idea seems to escape so many readers deeply puzzles me. Nevertheless, it ought to be clear that it is a mistake to attack half of one’s potential allies and potential audience within a country by one’s own approach, and hopefully writers (and editors) will be more sensitive to the need to tone down offensive rhetoric that shows itself as being too one-sided in the future. We can only hope that at least some people may be persuaded to behave in a proper faction from self-interest, if no better motives are present in such individuals.