The Death of Civility: Did it Fall or Was it Pushed?
American political discourse has always loomed large upon the world stage. When one of the worlds most powerful nations calls its head of state 'The Leader of the Free World” then it is only natural that the citizens of the free world take at least some degree of interest in the politics of that land.
What is more, it's not as if we can easily ignore it. In the age of ever increasing interconnectivity the political discourse of the USA is splashed across social media, debated right in front of our eyes, argued about on the web and the constant back and forth of the increasingly polarized sides becomes a drama played out on the stage of social media under the glaring floodlights of the world's broadband connections.
One of the trending debates at the moment is civility. Civility in debate and discourse and civility in the way everyone is supposed to treat their political opponents and the members of the administration. Despite the fact that I have watched as American political discourse has grown increasingly acrimonious and bitter for more than a decade now, suddenly civility is the topic on a million lips, spilling from a million keyboards.
On the surface of course, calls for civility are not only a good thing but are long overdue. At least, they would be, if they were genuine. There is something distinctly disingenuous about the current round of calls for civility though. They began in response to a few small incidents where members of the administration were heckled in public, or asked to leave restaurants and refused service. In one instance a comedian referred to the first lady by using the 'C' word. A word I am by no means coy over but have chosen to censor here for those of you who are distressed by it.
Taken on their own these incidents do seem to be beyond the pale, well the last one certainly, but I would argue the second one is just the price of power. If you aren't prepared to pay that price then do not stand in the shadow of the mantle of power and be it's mouth peace. However these things did not occur in a vacuum and pretending they did is unhelpful at best. Worse, deliberately framing these incidents so that the things they are in response to are out of shot is simply put, dishonest.
A great many people have spoken about how the current POTUS promoted acts of violence during his campaign, so I won't dwell on that point when I have others to make. What I will say to those who claim it is 'Fake News' is that the live feed of these comments had made it around the world before the first apologists took to their keyboard. It's not fake news, we all saw it. The clips are still easily available. Nor will I entertain the defence that 'they were taken out of context' – there is no context in which it is acceptable for a presidential candidate to utter things such as, “Maybe he should have been roughed up, because it was disgusting what he was doing” “If you see some one getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of them, would you? Seriously," or “In the good old days this wouldn't happen because they used to treat them very, very rough.”
There is a term for a leader who refuses to accept heckling, criticism, protest and yes, even throwing tomatoes (I'm British, egging politicians is virtually a national pastime here and is considered part of the price of power). That term is dictator. Anyway, I said I wouldn't dwell on this as it has been covered extensively by others already, so let's move on to the things I actually wanted to talk about today. For more than a decade now I watched as people on the political right of US politics have called others, “Libtards”, “Cucks,”, “Morons”, “Scroungers,” and more recently “Snowflakes”. I have watched as these same people, many of whom are calling for civility all of a sudden, have mocked people in the cruelest ways they could think of. Belittled them. Denigrated ideas like political correctness, guffawed at the idea of safe spaces for rape survivors and other sufferers of violent, invasive crime or PTSD. I have seen it time without number. We all have. I've seen people receiving incredibly hateful and evil private messages for being on the wrong side of the debate. I've seen threats, both veiled and standing proudly out in the bright sunlight of mid day, unhidden. We all have. Yet now, now you call for civility? You do not deserve civility if you mock the very idea of it when your opponents call for it. When the recordings of Donald Trump talking about grabbing women by the pussy were leaked – once the attempts to dismiss it as 'Fake News' failed, the right instead turned to mocking the left for being offended by strong language and what they tried to pass off as locker room talk, or incivility, if you will. Never mind the fact that people were actually concerned about what sounded like a presidential candidate advocating for sexual misconduct. No they tried to re-frame it as people being offended by the words used. They found the idea that people would be offended by uncivil terms amusing then. A cause for ridicule. Yet now we are expected to think they care about civility In discourse?
There is a saying in the UK. “My head doesn't button up the back!”. It equivocates to the American colloquialism “Don't piss down my back and tell me it's raining," Well zip up those flies folks because it's a scorching hot, glorious day here and my back is still getting wet.
If the right don't like living in the house they inhabit now, then they would do well to remember that they had a very big hand in building it. They drew up the plans and laid the foundations, of course, that was when they imagined only their political opponents would have to live in it. The truth is the right lost the privilege of being treated with civility and courtesy when they threw the idea of treating others that way out of the window so gleefully. “Do onto others as you would have them do unto you” - Luke 6:31
Of course, not everyone on the American right behaved as badly as the worst. It would be unfair of me to imply they did. Many would never use terms like “Libtard” or “Cuck”, many of those would not mock safe spaces or the victims of trauma.
They were pretty quiet when others did it though.
I mean, I can't recall many calls for civility then.
If you were silent when the people on your side of the political divide were behaving so appalling if you didn't call for civility when your political friends were the ones refusing to behave with any civility then you have no right to complain now. If you wouldn't chastise your own, then you do not get to chastise your opponents. If you only held the lens of your criticism up to those you disagree with but not to those you call your political friends – then there is a word for that too. Hypocrisy. If the American right wants civility in political discourse, and that is a laudable aim when it's genuine, then they must be the change they want to see and those that already behave cordiallyneed to speak up against those on their own side not just those on the other.
