Are We Less Civil Now?

America’s Political Past Was Nastier in Some Ways-And Nicer In Others

 

In 21st-century American politics, the combatants don’t agree on much. But they do agree that political discourse isn’t as civil it should be. This is a very old complaint, since political campaigns in America have long been dirty, bare-knuckle affairs. In advance of a Zócalo event in San Francisco on whether civility is overrated as a political virtue, we posed a question comparing our present and past: what’s more civilized or laudable about today’s campaigns–and what’s much worse?

Today’s civility and consensus have hurt our politics

Civility is endlessly discussed and much overrated. And in many cases, it is merely a cloak for the kind of mind-numbing political consensus that has made our partisan politics-obsessed with power rather than ideas–so poisonous and unproductive.

Of course, we should all be civil or polite to one another, and it would be marvelous if our politics could be serious without being sectarian. But sometimes disagreement is real and grounded in quite divergent principles, values and world views. The search for civility must incorporate and accept these differences, not ignore them. That is true tolerance.

Members of America’s founding generation prized civility greatly, though for many of them, a reverence for civility was part of their elitist conception of politics. Gentlemen were civil to one another, despite political disagreements, because they shared a common class status and world view. Those who sought to participate in–and interrupt–this polite, elite discourse were frequently dismissed as uncivil ragamuffins. Democracy was in tension with the preservation of political civility. In many respects it still is.

Conflict is the lifeblood of democratic politics. It’s what keeps all of us thinking creatively and moving forward. It’s essential to political progress. Should we treat one another with respect? Certainly. But lurking beneath much of the current concern about political civility (which is an old worry about the degeneration of politics and political discourse that goes back to the democratic and print revolutions of the eighteenth century) is a yearning for consensus that is deadening and the product of a misplaced nostalgia for the past. A past that never was.

Like the founders, who were above all bold and remarkably creative politicians, we must not be afraid to argue, and to argue vehemently and seriously about the future of our society and our state. Civility is not the absence of conflict. But civility is, or at least should be understood as, creative acceptance, a recognition of our shared past, present and future. It should be premised not on spurious agreement and commitment to ideological “Americanism” but on the absolute belief that we are all–immigrants, natives, different racial groups, people of different sexualities, genders and class origins–Americans. That must be the unshakeable and unquestionable ground for intense political disagreement. And that is true civility: the mutual recognition of one another as legitimate and important participants in a political debate without end.

Marcus Daniel is associate professor at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. He is the author of Scandal & Civility: Journalism and the Birth of American Democracy (Oxford University Press, 2008)

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It was nastier in 19th century America, but today’s media is different

It would be hard to beat the level of incivility and vilification that existed in American campaigns in the late 18th and early 19th Centuries. We do not beat those levels today, although we often come close. And, in the 19th Century, America had a highly partisan media that was usually more interested in beating the drums for the party and beating the stuffing out of the other side than it was in reporting the truth. Today, America has a comparably partisan press (along with a still important mainstream media presence that tries to avoid a partisan tilt.)

But the historic parallels take us only so far. There is a major difference between today’s campaigns and those of earlier rough-and-tumble eras. First and foremost, the scope, sweep, depth, breadth, and immediacy of today’s media surpass anything the country has ever seen or experienced. Instead of having one or two newspapers–or, as in the era I grew up in, three television networks, two newspapers and a few radio stations–Americans now have instant access to 500 television channels and millions of websites. And with the amplification of email and social media, political information–messages, stories, anecdotes and lies and fabrications–travels everywhere in nanoseconds.

Instead of being passive consumers of news–sitting on the couch, sans a remote control, watching television–Americans can watch just what they want to watch when they want to watch, read in the same way, and cocoon themselves in media outlets that do not leave them with uncomfortable conflicts.

The competition for eyeballs and ear canals, the need to cut through the cacophony, has boosted infotainment at the expense of information, and raucous mud wrestling over civilized debate. The coarsening of the culture means that lying brings no approbation or shame, but greater fame and more money. The unhappiness with governing has given even more potency to negative advertising. The rise of the permanent campaign has turned politics into a bloodsport, with healthy partisanship replaced by destructive tribalism. The reckless Citizens United decision by the Supreme Court has forced candidates to raise money not only for their own campaigns but also to guard against a last-minute, multimillion-dollar attack by an anonymous individual or group. Such fundraising adds immensely to the corruption in the system.

All of this has helped to create a level of dysfunction that is highly dangerous and inimical to compromise or serious problem solving.

Norman Ornstein is a long-time observer of Congress and politics. He writes a weekly column for Roll Call called “Congress Inside Out” and is an election eve analyst for CBS News. He is the co-author of It’s Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided With the New Politics of Extremism (Basic Books, 2012).

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Negative ads worked–then and now

When I first ran for Congress in 1976 against a 16-year incumbent, my campaign ran a series of TV ads, soft by today’s standards, which very graphically described how he had done nothing substantive during his tenure. Even though I only spent about $100,000 on that election (most of which were on TV spots), the ads had enough impact that I was pummeled by my opponent and by the local media for the ‘negative’ tone of the ads, the likes of which they had never seen before. In today’s political climate, no pundit would advise me or any candidate to run such soft, mushy ads, as they would be considered weak and tepid by current standards. Times have changed. But I did win that race for Congress.

Negative ads work in politics, and today’s political spots are saturated with hyperbolic and personal attacks that are the norm in most campaigns. The content of the ads are a product of profound increases in campaign spending; if you’re going to spend such large money, and at such high volume, there’s no point in being subtle.

Voters anecdotally say they don’t like this negative campaigning, but the evidence suggests the contrary. The ads are impactful and are about the only thing that gets through the clutter and volume of similar advertising during the political season. And if a politician doesn’t fight fire with fire, the result is usually a faster trip to retirement. The increase in political money (via Super PACs, PACs, and the whole ball of wax), has amplified these negative messages and made politics more bitter and divisive than in days of yore. As the expression goes, politics was never meant to be “bean bag”, but neither was it designed to be nuclear war. The war, and the lack of civility in politics, turns people off. It doesn’t give citizens much confidence in the political system when they see campaigns focused more on hate than love.

The public says it loathes all of this. Our political leaders often say the same thing. Maybe the public will surprise us and will set us all straight this November.

Dan Glickman is currently a senior fellow at the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) in Washington, D.C.

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History is uneven, with some eras nastier and other nicer

In a recent piece of research, a student of mine, Alex Sproveri, and I found that our nation has experienced periods of especially rough-and-tumble politics. But it is as wrong to suggest our politics has always been uncivil as it is wrong to assume the current acrimony is novel. Perhaps politics in the United States has never seen a golden age of civility, but the environment was a bit more cordial in some eras, and a bit nastier in others.

Fierce rhetoric helped Andrew Jackson to drive populist sentiment, to win office–and define an era. A generation later, political parties were determinedly uncivil as they energized sectional electorates and divided the country as America marched towards its Civil War. Labor used harsh rhetoric to make gains during the industrial revolution, as muckrakers took on the corporate establishment, and political machines used extreme tactics to control entire cities. Republicans were uncivil in mounting opposition to FDR’s policies in the 1930s, and Joseph McCarthy and his followers used uncivil practices to gain national prominence during the red scare. And in today’s new media age, the angry Republicans and Tea Party followers have disrupted town halls meetings on health care, filled the Internet with smears, and waved violent protest signs at rallies.

Our research on civility also found a gradual, steady, prolonged trend towards negative rhetoric over the last 30 years. But it’s hard to point to a particular policy dispute or crosscutting election that explains this escalation. It seems that, in the current climate, various social, demographic, and political forces have created a protracted period of partisan polarization. We might wonder, also, if new technologies–such as narrowcasting, micro targeting, and niche marketing–mobilize individual voters around personal, hot buttons rather than broad themes. If so, what would be the incentive for these actors to pull back from using these techniques?

Daniel M. Shea, Ph.D. is Professor of Government and Director of the Goldfarb Center for Public Affairs and Civic Engagement at Colby College. He is also the co-editor, with Morris Fiorina, of Can We Talk? The Rise of Rude, Nasty, Stuborn Politics (Pearson, 2012).

*Photo courtesy of Chapendra.