Censorship Series Part 4: The Real Reason Why Politics Used to Be ‘Civil’
But That Doesn’t Mean We Should Just Stop Talking To Each Other
I have always believed civility is an overrated virtue. I think life is little more than a series of microaggressions that will over the course of any given time drive a person to the brink of madness and that to just act if it’s wrong to be upset about them is fundamentally inhuman.
That is why whenever I hear commentators and pundits bemoaning the loss of ‘civility’ in any part of political discourse I truly wonder if they’ve studied any history at all. Being angry at the normal way of life has been one of the propelling forces in every country’s history and America’s in particular. The only reason empires are overthrown anywhere is because of outrage at the status quo: it’s one of the things that fundamentally are part of the idea of American exceptionalism. Outrage against exclusion is perhaps the only way any major group in society gets rights. Ever since we became an independent country we have been fueled by outrage as much anything else.
Now when it comes to governing and how it functioned, the idea that Congress was civil from the foundation of the Republic is as much a myth as that of George Washington and the cherry tree. The first half of the nineteenth century in Congress was as violent as the struggle for slavery itself and for exactly the same reason. Violence on the floor of Congress frequently erupted. Duels were fought because of infringements of ‘honor’ and Congressman often died as a result. On the eve of the Civil War, elected representatives were carried knives and guns on the floor of both the House and the Senate. And just prior to the 1856 election, Preston Brooks, a Southern Democrats walked on to the floor of the Senate and beat Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner within an inch of his life. Brooks resigned from Congress rather than face expulsion — but was reelected, and received walking sticks from his constituents and was admonished by Southern newspapers for not hitting Sumner harder.
The anger in Congress was just as heavy during the Civil War even with the Southern Democrats gone and did not tone down notable until well into the 1870s. The major factor for the decline in outrage was the passing of the era of Reconstruction.
This era of ‘civility’ that so many historians are famously fond of was, I would argue, based on a simple principle for the next seventy years: both houses basically decided to forget the Civil War — and African-Americans — existed. Granted the Democrats were essentially entirely Southerners and with two exceptions between 1860 and 1932, never in the White House but the Republicans were doing all they could to make the country forget about what Lincoln had fought for. Of course Democrats and Republicans could have drinks together, engage in friendly debate and have legislation pass with no disharmony: they had made a ‘gentleman’s agreement’ to talk about everything except the thing that had driven them apart in the first place. We talk about both parties have liberals and conservative blocs, but by the standard of the 1900s, a liberal on ‘the Negro’ was someone who believed a black man should receive a fair trial before being hung for looking the wrong way at a white woman.
Nor was FDR willing to rock this particular boat; for all of the ways his New Deal may have cleared the decks for liberalism when it came to race Eleanor was far more progressive (much to the annoyance of fellow Democrats) In the lead up to the 1938 midterms, he organized an attempt at a purge of Conservative Democrats most of whom were opposed to his New Deal policy. Many of these Democrats were located in the Deep South. He tried to get rid of them on every issue but the one that might have mattered — race. His purge was a failure perhaps as a result.
As I have written in my articles on Hubert Humphrey in the aftermath of World War II, the Democratic Party began to take stronger attitudes on civil rights. The Southern Democrats stranglehold on the Senate began to dissolve as did the Democrats hold on the South. First with the Dixiecrat revolt in 1948, then two separate Eisenhower landslides began to erode the Democrat lock on the Solid South. It’s not exactly a coincidence that the ‘era of civility’ that so many historians talk of fondly began to dissolve soon after.
I’ve already mention how the Civil Rights Act of 1964 effectively helped end the Democratic lock on the South and the Republicans eventually lock on it. The effects of this were not fully apparent, as I mentioned in a series of articles, until George Wallace was no longer a factor in politics. With his departure, the explosion of Watergate and the rise of the conservative moment — none of which were unrelated — civility was gone from our national discourse pretty much by the late 1970s. The only reason it seems likes its more recent is because of the rise of cable news (which I’ve also railed against).
That’s the thing about our government: as long it was the province solely of two parties of white men talking as if the only important people in the country were white men, then democracy could have the appearance of civility. The cost of that civility was equality; I’d argue in a democracy you can have one but not the other.
However, there is a larger problem that neither side wants to face. Republicans can argue that for over a century the Democratic Party was the party of white supremacy. They are correct. Democrats can argue that Republicans have taken that mantle and have only been less obvious about it than the Democrats were when they were blatantly racist. They are also correct. What neither party wants to talk about is what we do about it now.
The Democrats — and progressives in particular — have no problem calling Republicans catering to racists and white supremacists. However, by calling almost everybody in the South default racists — which make no mistake, more than a few columnists on this blog will do outright — they demonstrate that they have no more grip on reality than when Lyndon Johnson tried to point out the reality of the situation to Hubert Humphrey when he argued for civil rights. Johnson told him: “It don’t take a genius to be for civil rights in Minnesota.” And that’s as true today in principle as it was in 1957.
I’ve read enough progressive blogs over the years blatantly dismissing the entire South. They might say a few nice things about Georgia or North Carolina, but that’s only because those states are purple. They might try to challenge Mitch McConnell because he’s the majority leader, but they wouldn’t dare try to run in Kentucky otherwise; they no doubt don’t even consider Andy Beshear a real Democrat. They barely put up a fight in states like Mississippi and Louisiana, and they certainly wouldn’t dare try a voting drive in Arkansas or South Carolina. They tend to argue with relish how blue states did better during Covid than those led by Republicans. They seem to believe the South entirely is little more than filled with gun toting, Bible banging, science denying, racists who are just waiting to shoot a black person under a Confederate flag. At the same time they will marvel why these people would vote for Republicans who will do everything in their power to work against their interests.
I can’t tell you how many articles I’ve read over and over about how the racist white man time is running out, that in a matter of decades America will be a country which is majority minority. They act as though as this is will be the end times for them, as if the Republicans, the Klansman, the white supremacists — who they all see as they same package — will magically go the way of the dinosaur. That they will in the same series of columns berate certain news media for arguing the Great Replacement theory as a myth would seem contradictory — but it’s clear they seem to think once they have a majority of Democrats — let’s be clear that’s the message — that they won’t have to deal with ‘those people’ any more. If Progressives genuinely believe this — if anybody does — this is pure naivety if not ignorance.
There is no interest in seeing their point of view any more than they accuse the conservatives of being. There is no attempt to think they have a place in the world. Conservatives argue that their voters way of life is changing. Progressives’ argument to those same voters is the same thing — and that its going to happen whether they like it or now. This message might help win elections in Vermont or New York or yes, Minnesota but its not a strategy of consensus. It’s one of exclusion and denial of the problem.
And this is the fundamental extension of what both sides seem to be found of. They are exactly the same when it comes to the ‘other side’. One side seems to want to do everything in its power to make sure that the other can not vote. The other side seems as determined to get to the point when there are more of them then ‘the other’ and the implication is they will be free to pretend the other side doesn’t exist. This is the ugly truth that the extremists in the Republicans and Democrats both share: they only agree in democracy as long as their side is in charge and they don’t have to deal with ‘those people’.
In 1990 Harvey Gantt, an African-American was running against Jesse Helms, the Republican Senator from North Carolina. In what was a close race, Michael Jordan a resident of Charlotte was asked if he’d take a position. Jordan gave one of the most controversial responses in sports history: “Republicans buy sneakers too.” Gantt lost a close election and Jordan, considered the greatest basketball player in history, was considered an Uncle Tom by many African-Americans and a sell out to millions. Even Barack Obama said he thought Jordan should have pushed harder and campaigned for him.
Here’s the thing. Whether he meant to or not, Jordan had told the world a very uncomfortable truth. Republicans do buy sneakers. They also buy tickets to basketball games. They also go to work every day often working alongside Democrats. And much as Gantt might have wanted to argue in his campaign against Helms, not every person who punches the ticket for a Republican candidate is a racist. There have been quite a few leftists who are inclined to paint them all under the same brush.
I actually raised this point when it comes to hate speech a few weeks ago. Do progressives genuinely think that they can identify racists by their voting patterns or where they live or work? And the thing is, even the blatant racists and how we condemn them seems to break down by tribe as well.
When Strom Thurmond was celebrated by Trent Lott in the Senate on his 100th birthday, many Democrats condemned Republicans for celebrating a man who had run on a segregationist platform. When Robert Byrd became a major force condemning the Iraq war, those same Democrats defending Byrd even though he had been a member of the KKK in his youth. I have a feeling that if Byrd had been a member of the GOP or Thurmond was still a Democrat at that time, the opposing party would have condemned them with the same vituperation and not noticed the contradiction then either. Tribalism can sometimes even outweigh prejudice.
Racism is never going to go away. You can’t legislate it out of existence; you can’t outnumber down to nothing and you certainly can’t pretend that the people’s belief — however utterly wrong they are — are just going to disappear. That is what equality means. We’re just going to have to accept it. Not ignore it, not try to shout it down. But find a way to live with it, even if it isn’t civil. And if we are serious about preserving democracy, we can’t pretend that it will be solved by turning the other side into a permanent minority. We might say that shouting at each other isn’t government, but ignoring the other side completely, that’s not democracy either.