Wait, what?
Having been born in 1977, I tend to think of things not so nasty before 1994.
The Gingrich revolution of 1994 and subsequent impeachment of Bill Clinton raised the nastiness level.
The next increase in the nastiness level was when Obama won, which led to the Republican wave in 2010.
The next increase after that was when Scalia died and the senate Republicans refused to give Merrick Garland a hearing.
And of course the election of Trump ratcheted things up further, with things continually getting worse as his term has gone on.
American politics got so nasty about 1776. Ask the British.
Even earlier than that. You had, for example, Tea Party 1.0 in 1773. Revolutionary fervor had been brewing for some time.
Prior to the Civil War, a Southern member of the House walked onto the Senate floor and beat a Northern Senator almost to death with his cane. Wanna talk nasty?
Also, if you’ve ever read the book that the musical Hamilton is based on, the politics has been nasty from day one. Jefferson and Madison publicized Hamilton’s illicit affair because they were political enemies.
Riiiight… 
. It’s all the Democrats’ fault, for re-electing Obama.
I agree with the other posters who cite Lee Atwater and Newt Gingrich as the ones largely responsible for the current state of US politics. I think it was David Brock in his book “Blinded By The Right” who says that after the fall of Communism in the Soviet Union and eastern Europe during the Reagan years, the GOP no longer had their traditional “boogeyman” and decided to turn on their fellow countrymen in the Democratic party as their new enemy. Which is how we wound up with the current state of GOP thinking where Vladimir Putin is the good guy and Hillary Clinton is pure evil.
The right also found unprecedented ways to exert pressure on the institutions that have served the common good. The New Deal era corrected the inequities that threatened to destroy America in the 1920s and 30s. FDR ushered in a new era of big government that people actually benefited from. Reagan came in and exploited economic hardship and a perception of global weakness to undo much of that progress. In so doing, he initiated a new era in which conservatives were able to assault public power and strip the government of its role in assisting lower income families. He tilted the balance of power away from public institutions and toward the moneyed interests, and that’s where we’re at now, only in much more extreme form.
It has always been nasty but the increased availability of news and social media has made the process more transparent and exposed the level of nastiness.
That’s the fundamental problem here- the web in general has done that in a LOT of arenas. It lets people present their kookery and unscientific, unproven nonsense as if it was valid. And the news media’s desire to be unbiased and even handed inadvertently lends credence to these ideas. The idea is that they present the official line and the kook line, and the consumer will be able to effectively evaluate them. But the problem is that just by treating them evenly, it tacitly implies that they’re on equal footing and that there’s a valid choice to be made between them.
News media really ought to get into the habit of calling out kookery, conspiracy theories and unscientific nonsense for what it is, instead of presenting it as an alternative viewpoint that someone should even consider.
Nastiness started from day 1. Let’s assume day 1 was when the Constitution was adopted, since that’s when the current governmental structure was established. Things were kept mostly in check while Washington was president (although boiling beneath the surface, especially during his second term). Once he stepped down the lid blew off (and it’s a good thing he stepped down when he did - there is little doubt that he would have won a third term, but then he would have died halfway through it and I don’t think a peaceful transition of power would have happened.)
It’s been nasty since the beginning, though the amount varies.
In 1856 senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts was attacked with a cane by representative Preston Brooks of South Carolina — right in the senate chamber.
It’s always been bad. Poor John Adams was given billy hell, and it’s never let up since.
On the other hand, I blame Ronald Reagan for the current spate of divisive nastiness. He was the spirit behind the demonization of the word “liberal” and the strong polarization of the populace. He pioneered refusing even to say the name of the opposition party correctly. Also a gigantic national debt and the transfer of trillions of dollars from the middle class to the very rich.
Other presidents have been worse in many ways, but has anyone ever done more harm to our nation than Reagan?
James Buchanan
Donald Trump
Dick Cheney pulling W’s strings
Reagan did some good with his bad. None of the above did any good.
Benjamin Harrison was pretty awful and probably directly caused the panic of 1893.
Harding did a lot of harm in his short time. If he had lived longer he may have done more harm.
That’s a rhetorical question, right?
I can think of 140,000 people who could of answered that, but…
I’m not getting the reference… Isn’t that the number of people the Jehovah’s Witnesses say will be admitted to heaven?
I think he means 140,000 in the swing states that propelled Trump to victory over Hillary, although I believe the actual margin was only 78,000 or so necessary to make all the difference.
Agreed that those two did more harm to the nation than Reagan. I can think of several others that are ahead of Reagan as well, including Woodrow Wilson and the two Andrews. It’s a bit of a closer call with W.
I meant the ~140,000 people who have died from Covid 19 on Trump’s watch.
Obviously they can’t define him as the worst President in our history because they are dead but I bet their loved ones want to.
Actually it is she. I just had the horrifying thought that it is going to be lots more than ~140,000 by the time we are done. That seals it.
This is only one factor but I think it is more significant than people realize. One of the reforms the GOP put in place in the 90s was the elimination of earmarks. All of a sudden no more port to congresspeople. So the congressperson couldn’t go back to their district/state with a new road/building/federal office building and show their constituents what a great job they were doing. So now congresspeople had to raise lots of campaign funds to fight off challengers and extreme positions are even more important. Back in the day, a congressperson could say that he/she had to vote for the fair housing bill or ethics bill or something in order to get the feds to pay for the new road. And people were OK with it. Without that discipline in the chamber, it is now each representative for himself and the only worry is the right or left back home.
Democrats started calling things the Republicans said “dog whistles” when the Democrats couldn’t find any evidence that the Republicans actually supported the things the Democrats claimed.