Empathetic Politics: An Interview with Dr. Abdul El-Sayed
Dr. Abdul El-Sayed presents at TEDxUofM 2017. Photo by TEDxUofM Conference.
The United States political system has left people on both ends of the political spectrum feeling frustrated and hopeless. The corruption, the elusive understanding of policy, and the feelings of being forgotten and unsupported will never be fixed no matter how many transitions of power occur or how ambitious a leader we elect. Instead, we must focus on healing our political system the same way in which we have learned to heal disease: diagnose the problem and then put a concerted effort into treating the problem in the most effective way possible, instead of relegating ourselves to an undignified life sponsored by the failings of diseased government.
As humans, we deserve to feel secure and live without fear that one unexpected bill could be the cause of homelessness. Resoundingly, we need empathetic politicians that will prioritize the well-being of their constituents rather than their paychecks. Progressive politicians are labeled radical when advocating for basic human rights that would benefit everyone in the United States. Meanwhile, the incessant discourse over what is “reasonable” has stalled progress and made achievements small and painstakingly slow. We do not hold the luxury to celebrate small victories when the system at large is still failing; we must push harder and demand a dignified and secure life being the norm for all people.
Nevertheless, we have people in the field and in all walks of life that have not given up. For instance, people like Dr. Abdul El-Sayed—who never actually intended to lead a life in the political sphere–now have a significant impact in transforming how we relate to politics. Trained as an epidemiologist, he is a Columbia graduate—and former professor—and was the youngest Director of Health for the City of Detroit. It was after serving Detroit that Dr. El-Sayed ran a progressive campaign for Governor of Michigan, endorsed by the likes of Senator Bernie Sanders and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Dr. El-Sayed has published multiple books, one of which is titled Healing Politics: A Doctor’s Journey into the Heart of Our Political Epidemic, and takes an epidemiologist’s view of our political problems and the empathy that is categorically necessary for solving them.
As a Columbia Political Review staff writer, I have had the opportunity to interview Dr. Abdul El-Sayed. We had a conversation about why a “bleeding heart” should not deter people from politics and how our inherently political world can work to create a fair future for a population suffering under the current status quo. The transcription of the interview is below.
What does empathetic politics mean to you, and what would an empathetic politician look and act like?
I think it's about being able to situate yourself in the experiences of other people, and to ask how to translate solutions to those experiences into public policy. It starts with centering other people and centering their experiences, and actually putting yourself in their shoes. Importantly, it's different than assuming you understand what the barriers that other people face are. I came to appreciate that difference when I was at the health department in Detroit, where oftentimes canonical public health has a certain set of solutions to big public health problems. Those solutions are more founded on other people thinking through what solutions to those problems in their life may look like, and missing the broader context for the ways that other people experience those problems.
In your book, Healing Politics, you say “Perhaps there is no room for bleeding hearts in politics. And yet, there is no choice but to try.” What do you mean by “bleeding heart” and how do you see that trait helping you in your career and politics in general?
I’ll be honest, I'm really uncomfortable—I stay uncomfortable—with the concept of aspiring to be an elected official because it is so clearly the pursuit of power. I think there is something corrupting about the pursuit of power, and I think it attracts people who tend to be more enamored with power than with what power allows them to do for people. I think the culture of politics, because it tends to aggregate people who are enamored in power, tends to disdain the kind of empathy and the kind of people-centeredness that is so important in informing our public policy. I hope that I'll always be somebody who centers the struggles of other people, and I’m hurt by the fact that our society hurts so many others, but that's not the kind of person that tends to be driven into politics from my experience, and it tends not to be the way that our politics operates for that reason.
Have there been moments where you’ve questioned if the change from the inside of politics is working? Do we really have any other option? Would you like to speak to how you decided to run for governor since that’s not what you set out to do?
I had no intention of running for office; that was not part of my life's plan. I went into medicine because I care about people and their struggles, and I thought that was going to be the way to help solve them. I was ultimately frustrated by the fact that so many of the solutions we need are political solutions, and that's what led me to this line of work. I came to politics from public policy, and I thought that if you had the right policy that that’s what would ultimately inspire enough people to vote for you; however, I think I was wrong on that account. I've come to appreciate that so much more of what dictates our politics is our culture and the narrative we allow to operate the way the world is and why it is that way. So much of what I've done since [running for governor] has been around trying to inform culture and to help to shape that narrative about who we are and who we want to be, and what that dictates in our politics. I think the critical role of politicians is to translate our culture into policy. I think that is a really important piece about what being on the “inside” is about, but you can't lose track of what you're trying to create, because it does also involve the pursuit of power which I think is inherently corrupting. Because of that, there has to be a real balance in the way people think about nurturing what it is they care about, what matters to them, even as they try and achieve the kinds of ends in public policy that would benefit so many people.
What is the danger in pursuing policies that are “achievable” or supporting politicians that are more “electable”, and why are progressive policies often labeled as unreasonable?
I think it gets back to that culture and narrative of what is achievable and what's not. The opponents of obvious policies paint things as unreasonable, framing issues as outside the bounds of any logical discussion because those policies would ultimately reduce their profits or force a rethink of how we distribute resources. I just think that we have to reframe because it is unreasonable to live in a society that has as much money as we do and leave people without healthcare; it is unreasonable to know that what we are doing is destroying the earth on which we rely and not do anything about it; it's unreasonable to ask people to go out in a pandemic and not agree to pay them a basic living wage. These are the things that are unreasonable, but the narrative is a function of how much we hear and who's got the time to push that. We need to be opposing that narrative and be thoughtful about doing so. Politicians need to use the platform that they have to do that, but it's also important for all of us to also be engaged in the conversation about what really is unreasonable if we expect to get any public policy that will solve it.
What are you doing on the cultural side of things as opposed to the political side of things?
Obviously, all my work is inherently political because it's about changing public policy, but writing books, hosting podcasts, and writing essays—those are all intended to get people thinking a little bit about how things ought to be. Around shaping that discourse about who we are and who we ought to be, and what the consequences of the way we do things now are for people. That's been the focus that I sort of really dedicated my time to since running [for governor], and that's about culture change, about helping people see the truth beyond the most obvious things. We need to be asking if we wanted the world to be different, what we would have to do about it, and then trying to connect those dots for folks.
Do you notice that there is a push for politicians to be tough and lack the empathy that seems so vital, and is this problematic to the leaders we elect?
I think it's definitely problematic, but I don’t think it's an explicit push. The nature of politics attracts a certain kind of personality because it is bruising and it comes with a lot of criticism, so I think it attracts and then reifies a certain kind of personality. People do not want to be vulnerable because being vulnerable is painful, so you end up having a process that tends to harden people; I do think it does a disservice to the kind of empathy we would want in our politicians and the kind of self-sacrifice that I think is inherent to the work.
Are there certain logistics and mentalities that hinder progress? How do we go about overcoming those systemic issues?
A couple of things. I think obviously voter suppression— the people that tend to be hurt the most by the system that we live under tend to have the smallest voice in the system. That is a real process failure on the part of our democracy, and we need to be dedicated to fixing it. But the second is also the role of corporations and money in politics, which tends to empower the voices of people that benefit the most from the system. We have a dimming down of the voices of people who are hurt by the system, and an amplification of the voices of people who are benefiting from the system and it leads the system toward the benefit of the most powerful and toward ignoring the least powerful. The other piece of that is that the rule of the political industry has facilitated that [tendency toward favoring the powerful]. If you're willing to be a political mercenary then you go into politics for money, and you end up having this industry that profits off of being able to deploy people's money to change the public conversation.
Could you explain how you use your experience as an epidemiologist regarding our political system?
As an epidemiologist, you're taught to ask how the places that people live and learn and work and pray and play shape their health over time. In Healing Politics, I diagnose this idea of an epidemic of insecurity where the governing consensus over the past forty years is that corporations can do public goods better than the government. This has left us in a scenario where the poorest people get excluded from those corporate-provided public goods and everyone else gets extracted from. We have a society where we are all suffering the long-term trauma of losing the basic means of a dignified life over time. And it's not just the poor, obviously poor people and people of color suffer it worse due to structural racism, but it's everyone who is suffering. Once you create such a massively unequal society, the fear of falling to the bottom of that—even if you have means—tends to accelerate the exact system that is exacerbating inequality in the first place. It's the self-perpetuating system that leaves us fearful for our and our loved one’s futures, and unwilling to come together to enact real change and to build out a set of systems that really would benefit everyone.
What is your advice to a generation of current and future individuals that want to change the way we think about policies and how to approach our government?
Well, everything is inherently political. If it has anything to do with the distribution of scarce resources, then it's political, and I've never seen a resource that wasn't scarce at some point. For that reason, I think all of us ought to be invested in our political system. Not everyone has to run for office, but I do think all of us should be thinking about the political implications of what we do and the narrative we tell ourselves about why people have, or don't have, in our society. If we are serious about building a society that is true to our ideals, then it's going to require us to fundamentally rethink the way we do things. I'll be honest with you, folks your age and in your generation have seen the failures of so much of the way our system works. I think my generation still thought that the rat race was worth it. I think your generation has said that we’re not rats and we can do a lot better.
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My conversation with Dr. El-Sayed reinforced that we can’t fight fire with fire, and we can’t support the people who feel forgotten by the government by ostracizing them further. People like Dr. El-Sayed have built a living and a movement based on the power of people who believe in the importance of trying. Because in the trying there is doing, in trying, we are actively transforming, even when it seems like the concrete results are small. I reject the fact that millions of people must suffer their entire lives simply because the notion of helping them is “radical.” Progress is inextricably tied to the unlearning of a repressive status quo. I believe that as people are unlearning the ways they were told life has to be, they are daring to say that they deserve more, and to silence them, people are saying their demands are radical. I myself have been told that I’m “too nice” to pursue a career in politics, and it is absurd that we refuse to recognize kindness and a “bleeding heart” as the invaluable skills that they are. Our world is desperate for empathetic leaders who care more about the well-being of their constituents than the well-being of their bank account. Our society is desperate for creative policy solutions that make life better for everyone, which really isn’t radical at all.
Olivia Deming is a Staff Writer for CPR and a first-year student in Columbia College studying Political Science. She is a bleeding heart and advocates the necessity of empathy in politics and life in general.