It’s pretty widely acknowledged that the political scene in the US is rather dysfunctional. Each side demonizes and denigrates the other, accusing them of harboring foolish or evil motives and of operating with sub-par intelligence, and making bipartisan agreements very difficult to achieve.
Was it always this way?
The first time I noticed things getting divisive was in the mid-1990s, when Bill Clinton was President and Newt Gingrich was Speaker of the House. My recollection was a lot of nasty rhetoric in the air, mostly directed from the former to the latter.
The fact that I didn’t notice much nastiness before that time may be an artifact of my age: I wasn’t eligible to vote until the late 1980s. I hadn’t really paid any attention to politics until around that time, and didn’t pay a whole lot of attention for some years after that, until I matured a little more.
So I guess the question is for people who are in their late 50s or older, who would have been paying attention to politics in/before the 1980s. What say you?
What is creating the current nastiness is that a faction that is losing their majority are fighting like hell to preserve their privileges.
This has happened before, in deadly fashion, such as lynchings during Jim Crow, murders during the Civil Rights Movement, all-out war during the labor movement, etc.
Yes. Have you watched Hamilton? It’s not a spoiler to say that the back-stabbing, muck-raking, etc is based on the historical record. Politics has always been a nasty business, everywhere and everywhen.
It probably seems nastier now than usual, but that’s because political norms are changing. Those violating the old norms look nasty to those of us still expecting them to be maintained. Those adhering to new norms look nasty to those not accepting them.
For example, there was a norm that the Senate minority would not abuse the filibuster rules. That norm is fading away and it irks those who want to keep it.
Or another example, there was a norm that men in power could take advantage of women. That norm is fading away and those who to keep it are upset about it.
Maybe, but I think it’s more likely that with the proliferation of poorly managed social media sites – any lunatic can have a blog, a Facebook page, an Instagram account and a Twitter feed – the crazy is more noticeable, and sadly, more influential.
Our politics has a history of going from nasty to more polite for brief times and then back to nasty. All the way back to Adams & Jefferson, it got pretty nasty.
Indeed, a lot of our old “norms”, as we have been discovering to our discomfort, were really gentlemen’s agreements between those who did not want the boat rocked too badly, and were willing to accept debate and challenge as long as the whole edifice did not come down. Which means nothing to those who want the edifice to come down and see it so close they can taste it.
Also the OP’s “first observation” in the 90s coincides with the breaking of the big-3 network news cartel, entrenchment of the 24-hour news cycle, the end of “fairness doctrine” on Talk Radio, and the death of hometown newspapers. Like bobsmon101 points out, today of course there is Twits-r-Us, I mean, Twitter, and multiple other online channels and pages. Back when, extremists had to stand in the corner of the park yelling themselves hoarse and trying to shove mimeographed pages at passerby, and there was such a thing as an editorial filter between the kooks and mass media: to reach hundreds of thousands of eyeballs/ears you’d have to pass through an editor/news director who’d only let by the better class of articulate presentable-in-mixed-company rant.
Trump started saying explicitly what Republicans had traditionally used dog whistles for. The tone is different but not the outlook. He “tells it like it is” in the sense that instead of hiding behind terms like “tough on crime”, he’s explicitly racist.
Part of it comes from Trump himself but also from the Know Nothing racist authoritarian wing of the GOP realizing that they had more power than the business and hawk wings. That’s largely what the Tea Party movement was about. If you want to put a specific moment to the dumbing down of the GOP discourse, I’d say it was McCain taking Palin as running mate, thus sending the message that it’s ok to be dumb in the Republican party.
You bring up a good point. The shape of news media is very important.
In the mid-century, Americans got their news from a few sources who found it in their interests to avoid much of the nastiness. I think that’s partially due to the government control of broadcasting rights. The government has inertia to maintain the status quo and that affects what licensed broadcasters cover.
Lately, media has become much decentralized and unlicensed, which allows all views wider circulation. A win for free speech, but it puts a burden on the populace that our education system did not prepare them for.
It’s somewhat similar to what we had in the 1800s, where every town of respectable size had two or more newspapers. Often they were linked to a political viewpoint or an identity. And they would publish all sorts of nastiness about the other side.
there used to be liberal Republicans and conservative democrats. but the parties are more ideological now.
I think a big part of it was when southern racists and white evangelicals became the base of the gop. people like that are prone to black and white thinking and people high in authoritarianism or social dominance orientation are hostile to what they see as threats and out groups.
point is there are dysfunctional people in America but they used to be spread all over politics or not involved in politics. now the most dysfunctional citizens (proto fascists, authoritarians, social dominators, racists, etc) have become the base of one party and they’ve shaped the party in their own image.
and seeing how they behave fills the other party with fear, rage and disgust.
Yes, as mentioned, American politics has been nasty since the beginning.
But in the modern era, there was Nixon’s “dirty tricks” campaign against Democrats. Then Lee Atwater, starting around 1980, used his own dirty tricks, including spreading misinformation to discredit Democratic opponents. Newt Gingrich contributed to the polarization of the parties, further demonization of Democrats, and a general breakdown in “decorum” between the parties. A little later Karl Rove perfected the tactic of attacking opponents on their perceived strengths, creating the term “Swiftboating”. This + Fox News pretty much led to the current atmosphere where trump just out-and-out says things like “DEMOCRATS ARE THE PARTY OF CRIME!!” and gets away with it.
Important to note that colonial America had freedom of the press not yet seen in the world before. English law didn’t provide such freedom but they couldn’t do much about it. The American revolution was born out of colonial printing presses. And just as they were used to call for independence they were used for local political attacks in state house elections, a process that continued on following independence. So yes, the media is inextricably connected to gutter politics in this country.
Back in the 1800s or 1700s, there were some truly lurid and ridiculous political things printed in newspapers (“children will be writhing on the pike and halberd!”), so this was certainly not a new thing.
I think it was around the time of the 2003 Iraq war that things truly started to turn nasty, though. The 2000 presidential election was positively mild compared to what things are these days, and after 9/11 there was even some boost in bipartisanship as the nation temporarily united together. That dissipated after the ill-advised war in Iraq, and by 2004 it was clear that blue-red vitriol was going to be a permanent feature.
The 2012 defeat of Romney also radicalized a good number of Republicans as well. They realized that if someone decent and reasonable like Romney couldn’t win or get a fair shake from the D’s (and I mean, Romney WAS a good and decent man compared to Trump; look at how Democrats praise Romney now these days, especially after he voted to convict Trump during impeachment), they might as well find someone nasty and cruel who could win. That led directly to Trump. 2012 was a big turning point; Republicans realized that if Democrats were going to cry wolf anyway when there was no wolf, they might as well nominate a real wolf.
In my lifetime, I have seen it get much worse. Eisenhower had a Democratic house during his last 6 years, but they never blocked his agenda. The two parties had a different view of what was the best thing to do, but they knew how to compromise. More to the point, both sides really did want what was best for the country, not just for their lobbyists. Filibusters were used very sparingly.
The first change came with Nixon who was so paranoid about the possibility of losing that he authorized (at least tacitly) the Watergate break-in. Ford was a big contrast and Carter was extremely conciliatory to the other side. Then came Reagan and the airline controllers strike that led, very gradually to the near destruction of the labor unions. The southern strategy was in full bloom by that time. Then along came Newt and, suddenly, no compromise politics.
Around the turn of the century is when it was exacerbated by gerrymandering that used computer modeling. Redistricting by both parties in power at the state level assured the limited turnover of seats between parties based upon district lines. This ultimately shifted the power of national elections to a few districts across the country, and party demagogues became entrenched and quit appealing to the moderates in the country.
My interpretation is that the final split occurred arounf '83 and it’s only gotten worse since then. I’d love for them to update it to the current time, but I suspect that would be way too depressing.
I think the Gingrich years, combined w/ the rise of the tea party, are a pretty good point to say things got worse - more dysfunctional. It seems as though it became more acceptable for Congress to forgo the actual practice of governing, in order to pursue whatever personal goals.
I’m liberal, so my perception is likely partisan, but it seems to me that the Repubs took a greater role in being willing to shut down government, holding up appointments, and the like (tho I realize numerous Dem misdeeds can be identified.)
There also seems to be an increased trend (bipartisan?) to pass through massive legislation - such as the Patriot Act, and numerous budget/tax legislation - which seems gets written at the last minute as the result of horse trading and is passed with few folk having even read it.
Yeah, there ha always been nastiness, but there previously seemed to be a sane “middle” that kept the extremes in check. It is so difficult to track legislation in any meaningful way, but it would be interesting to see if there has been an increase of legislation which passed primarily on party lines. Probably not …
This right here is it. I see it as 2 big events… first, the Fairness Doctrine got scrapped in 1987, which paved the way for talk radio. Then Bill Clinton got elected, conservatives absolutely could not get over it, and talk radio was there as a sounding board for their bilious ranting.
In addition, the 1980s saw the rise of the evangelical right in the Republican Party. Now, stopping Democrats was no longer merely a matter of good or bad policy, it was about stopping moral evil. Anytime you get morality into politics, compromise becomes impossible - how can you compromise with evil?
(Not saying morality doesn’t belong; just saying it makes compromise impossible)