The State of Civil Discourse
This past Saturday I attended the Freedom Forum in Blairsville to hear from the 9th District Congressional challengers, the 51st District State Senate candidates and others standing for election. I am the grassroots Director for Congressman Doug Collins in Union County and was manning a table with various material from the Collins campaign.
Before the candidates took the stage an elderly woman, who I know casually, approached my table. I asked if she would like a Collins sticker and apparently that lit the fuse. “Are you kidding?” she asked incredulously. Did I know what a horrible human being Doug Collins is? Quickly it escalated to how uninformed I am. Then there were some veiled references to me being a closet member of the dreaded “establishment”. Finally I learned that my long deceased parents apparently did a poor job raising me. All the while my mouth is hanging open disbelieving what is coming out of this “lady”.
Eventually she stormed off in a huff.
Shortly afterwards a male senior citizen advised me that he had lost all respect for me based on my choice to represent the 9th Congressional District. I wasn’t sure how I could lose something I didn’t know I had. While not as animated as the female, the conversation was just as personal.
So when did we lose the ability to disagree without it getting personal? When did we lose the ability to disagree without being irrational? When did attacking differing beliefs become an effective strategy to influence those beliefs? When did my generation lose their manners and lower their standards to the point of this type of behavior being acceptable?
Politics is a contact sport and one needs a thick skin to play in the game even on the periphery. I suspect that some people are unable to rationally explain their choice of candidates and their only remaining strategy is to attack. The weak challengers in the 9th District do it all the time so why be surprised when their supporters use the same tactics.
At the end of the forum the woman sought me out and in a loud voice asked me three times if I listened and did I learn anything.
At that point I discovered that angry people really get really angry when you laugh and walk away.
About Author
IrishPat
Patrick Malone is a Business Advisor and Leadership Mentor headquartered in Blairsville, Georgia. He co-hosts Mountain Daybreak and Mountain Mornings, weekday news programs, and hosts This Week in Blairsville a weekend program on WJUL/WJRB. He is a mentor in Union County High School, serves on his church council and writes a monthly column on leadership in the animal healthcare industry.
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“So when did we lose the ability to disagree without it getting personal?” Decades ago. Always been that way, but maybe a bit worse now due to increasingly easy access to so much personal data.
When ? It was 1850, a potato famine and a bunch of Catholics invaded……most people knew their place until Al Gore invented the internet…
The potato famine of Ireland was 1845. More Catholics came into this country when California was made a state in 1850, and from the Prussian Empire exodus between the 1870-1890 then during the potato famine. Facts… Discussed in a civil manner…
I think a lot of it has to do with the constant news cycle spurred on by social media. It’s easy to become outraged when all you’re exposing yourself to is outrageous, click-bait articles titled “You won’t believe what *YOUR* Congressman did…” and emails that want you to chip in $5 to help send faxes to your Congressman on a bill that has no chance of being signed into law.
We’ve become blind to the fact that governing and campaigning are two separate things. Making campaign promises is easy, but governing is hard.
It is what it is but there are some things we can do to help the people.
1. End gerrymandering by party, race or “voices”. Subdivide by population, neighborhood, zip codes, towns, cities, trade areas, counties, states…..
2. Term limits, end professional politicians. Then we can carry on about them not controlling their hired/appointed bureaucrats.
I keep hearing this tired talking point of gerrymandering. I know it sounds good, but it’s just not true. At least here in Georgia. Take a look at how the map has changed. Current vs. 2003-2006 map. The best way to place people into a congressional district is to do it with splitting as few counties as possible. Currently there are only 14 counties out of 159 that are split between congressional districts. Let’s find another talking appoint.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia's_congressional_districts#Historical_and_present_district_boundaries
I’m not just talking about big US congressional districts but since you mentioned it – my district 11 has to be a poster child for gerrymandering.
Adairsville to Ballground to Vinings and a nice swath of Fulton ITP to the DeKalb line, OTP to ITP with pieces of four counties.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia%27s_11th_congressional_district#/media/File%3AGeorgia_US_Congressional_District_11_(since_2013).tif
Did you not look at the maps in the links I posted?
You honestly think our current maps are more gerrymandered than they were in 2003?
And here you go, on Georgia redistricting, not for the people
http://saportareport.com/independent-process-congressional-redistricting-may-solution-georgia/
Not sure what age your generation is, but I would say the answer to “when” would be when Fox News became popular.
It was ugly before the fox got in the henhouse.
The average life span of a duck is under 10 years. Thus you are forgiven.
There’s something to the idea that Fox News is linked to the increasing amount of anger in our politics. This piece by Rod Dreher talks about the change that comes over people when they consume a steady diet of Fox, Limbaugh, etc. And to some extent, this followup piece on Where Fox geezers come from describes the type of person destined to become a Fox geezer, but also the type of person likely to be drawn to Donald Trump’s siren song of “Make America Great Again.”
If you want to talk “anger” need to look at MSNBC also, but then again no one watches MSNBC so I guess it doesn’t matter what they do.
I don’t watch FOX much anymore for the talking/yelling over each other, but ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN and the others spew sensational batsh*t crazy stuff for entertainment ratings and champagne pity parties.
Eye roll for the troll, Ducky…
The weak challengers in the 9th district…..
Collins started the negative campaign with the radio ad, on social media, and now the UPS mailer that he should be worried about. If they are so weak, then why come out of the gate so negative? He seems worried..
Contrary to popular belief more duels were fought over politics than matters of the heart.
Here’s one black lady’s view on the discontent:
http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/sthompson/160424
I got one of the vilest, despicable negative campaign pieces I have ever seen from any politician in the mail the other day.Personal attack after personal attack.
It was about Paul Broun and was from Doug Collins’s campaign.
So, you are saying it was all true.
From his website, Collins wants to fight for conservative principles and to push back against big government overreach and liberal erosion of American values. I don’t think Broun would disagree with those goals. Too bad Collins is to his left.
I’d like to know where Broun’s financing is coming from.