Civility in Public Discourse
This weekend, Aaron Sorkin and HBO’s new television show Newsroom premiered with much anticipation from the viewing public, thirsty for relief after their recent loss of Game of Thrones. Sorkin, the Emmy and Academy award winning writer who has brought us stand out work such as A Few Good Men, The Social Network and The West Wing, made his cable debut in the network drama. In each review I’ve read, the subject of civil discourse was mentioned as a dominant theme.
After watching it Sunday, it is evident that “civil discourse” and Mr. Sorkin’s contempt for its current state today in both politics and political reporting is a strong theme in the new show. This is not a novel idea in which Sorkin will reshape the world of politics. The President also laments over the current lack of civility in our political arena, as well as other Democrats, Republicans, Socialists, Neo-Nazis, Mets fans, and Heat fans to name a few. Whenever I hear this from either side of the aisle I find it hard not to laugh. Besides the fact that this false indignation is nothing more than a political ploy, one usually utilized by the side sitting in power who takes the daily brunt of ridicule from the opposition, those who use it also pine for the politics of yesteryear as if there is some magic example from America’s past to save us. Even the original description for this space when it was created read: to advance the political discourse of the United States. Really Mr. Burns, how about we solve the debt crisis first?
An uncivil discourse is the price one pays for the good fortune of living in a Democratic-Republic, where the peaceful transition of power is one of the, if not the highest priority in the United States. Our civilized society functions absent the use of violence as a means to political ends. That being the case, the road to political power in the United States is through oratory and the written word, and these words are often vitriolic. Short of going after one’s family members (unless of course it is a member of the Palin family), anything and everything is deemed fair game.
The last day Americans were actually unified politically was the surrender of the British at Yorktown. Since then, whether it be Federalists and Anti-Federalists, Democratic-Republicans and Whigs, or Republicans and Democrats, the divide in this nation has been far and wide between ideological nemeses of both parties, and also at times within the parties themselves. In 1789 General George Washington was the most revered man in America, and the only President ever elected unanimously by the Electoral College. Yet half way through his first term, a significant number of men with whom he built the federal government turned their backs on his policies as President. The influence of Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton became too prevalent in the President’s decisions, his opponents said, and for the first time in twenty years the great hero of the revolution felt the backlash of negative public opinion.
The National Gazette was published by an opposition party on October 31, 1791 (Madison and Jefferson, Burstein and Isenberg, Random House 2010) by a Frenchman named Phillip Freneau, but at the secret behest of more powerful figures. At this point political parties had not been officially established, but arguments and attacks of President Washington’s policies and that of his advisors were presented with the coordination and passion we see today by current politicians, partisan pundits, and news organizations.
The puppet master behind the curtain of this new editorial paper was none other than a member of the Washington’s cabinet, Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, as well as Virginia Congressman James Madison. Both men at one time revered Washington as much as any man in America, probably more so given the struggles they understood he endured in the execution of the Revolutionary War, and the new weight he carried as President of the young nation. All three were “men of Virginia”; farmers who helped deliver the birth of a new nation that now stood alone in the world, and together they were tasked with its keeping. Madison was Washington’s chief advisor throughout the Constitutional convention, and later became Washington’s principle speech writer in the early days of his presidency. Jefferson served as a member of the Second Continental Congress that named Washington General of the Continental Army, and after returning from France in 1789, was named by Washington to serve as his Secretary of State- the country’s first official diplomat to the world at large.
Yet within two years into his first term as President, both men became vehemently opposed to Washington’s policies to help centralize the federal government, which both men suspected was a direction taken by the president influenced heavily by Washington’s now most trusted advisor, Alexander Hamilton. Jefferson soon resigned the position of Secretary of State, sparking a decade long struggle for power between the Federalists (Washington, Hamilton and Adams) and the Jeffersonian-Republicans (Jefferson, Madison, Monroe). The battle was furnished with published pamphlets oozing of libel, backdoor dealings and maneuvers to undermine the opposition, and a general distrust between old friends. This culminated in an all-out battle for the soul of the nation that ended when Jefferson assumed the Presidency, and all but politically wiped out the remaining “Federalists” of the time period.
As such, our Constitution’s rule requires the candidate win 50% plus one of the vote in the Electoral College to attain the Presidency, the highest office in the land. This resulted in the production of two parties, gearing our elected officials in opposition or support of the sitting President, molding their party principles based on the current circumstances of the country based on economics, foreign policy et al. The institution of the United States government is no stranger to opposition within the government, usually vied between different branches. This stark example of Jefferson walking out on Washington, or serving in fierce opposition as Vice President to his former ally and friend President John Adams, are just a few of countless examples in which civility has been entirely absent in our American political system.
The good feeling of the victory against the British could not save these men from the dinge of politics, an arena that became so coarse that the President’s senior cabinet advisor resigned before he could barely begin his second term as president. In that term, Jefferson used the veil of retirement to allow him to secretly plot against President Washington, his emerging party and its agenda. There could not be a better illustration depicting the struggles of civility between parties in American politics in the country’s history save for a tragic and monumental example in 1861. This tale which is one of hatred, jealousy, lust for power, and ultimately betrayal, occurred between a collection of men who took on so monumental a task together as founding a new nation in a New World. Just because of their iconic status as Founders- Washington a great leader, Jefferson a great writer, or Adams a great orator- doesn’t lift the taint of their parties’ mutual dissatisfaction for the other, and the means they employed to discredit the opposition. What binding achievement such as the founding will keep our civility intact in our own times?
The current trumped up charge that civility in politics is a relic that existed during better times in our country is one advanced by both sides of the aisle. This tact allows each party to claim ownership to the positions that will only help our country and right the failing policies of our federal government, simultaneously making the charge that the opposition only stands in the way with their uninformed rhetoric. This ignorant and libelous rhetoric, somehow always employed by the “other side”, only demonizes their opponents without offering real solutions to advance progress in this country. This hackneyed allegation has become, like so many other things, just another political parlor trick in the war of words that dates back more than two centuries in the United States.
Americans are inherently suspicious of power in the hands of our elected officials that we actually chose to vote for. We are even more suspicious of those we did not choose support and we make a point of saying so, often vociferously and sometimes viciously. It may not be neat, nor is it civil. But it never has been. And never will be.
– John P. Burns
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