For those who have followed my train of argument so far, I have been trying to derive what we share as true American values, and to ask whether the current administration serves our nation in the pursuit of those shared values.
In previous posts I have talked about coming home to those values, and looked at the respect for law and order, truth, honesty as shared values. Today I have looked at the following, what I believe, is a core American Value.
We value in general a certain decency, a certain dignity, a decorum, certain standards, and civility. We value respect for the dignity and the rights of individuals.
Ideally of all individuals. Of all races, colors, genders, creeds, nationalities, it is in our DNA to do so. We believe that individuals have intrinsic worth as human beings. We believe in a certain willingness to respectfully listen to one another. It also means a respect for certain traditional norms and standards. We don’t really value, in the long run, public servants or leaders who speak like street toughs and ‘hooligans’, who are ill mannered, ill tempered, crude. Although some may tolerate it to achieve other goals, I can’t really believe that taunts, slurs, insults, and ridicule are what Americans genuinely wish to see, to show their children, and to emulate in our leaders.
Donald Trump famously answered his first ever political debate question by arguing that there was “too much political correctness” in our society, and that it was to our detriment.
It is worth while looking at the question which brought him to that defense. He wasn’t being bursting through an imagined reticence on the part of others to ‘be straight and tell it like it is’ uncomfortable truth.
That first debate question from Megan Kelly was, “You’ve called women you don’t like ‘fat pigs,’ ‘dogs’, ’slobs’ and disgusting animals.’ Does that sound to you like the temperament of a man we should elect as president?’
It was a good question then, and remains a good question today, but the question should now be asked of us all. Is the sense of dignity, decency, civility and a standard of mutual respect something that we value in our society? Are these shared American values? Is treating each other with respect something we wish to come home to?
It is not unusual to complain about the fact that Donald Trump started is political career in war against political correctness . And it is certainly true that modern journalists, political analysists and cultural and legal scholars have weighed in on this question without hesitation.
“We can’t function as a community of people and as a nation without certain standards of how we treat each other and how we respect some fundamental virtues imperative to being citizens of this great country and the world”. And, in fact, the statisticians among the press have counted hundreds of insults thrown by our president, more of which will be listed later, but those listed by Megan Kelly will suffice for now.
Journalists can then complain, but we have to ask, is civility really a traditional American value? Is it something to which we aspire as a society? Or is Donald Trump right when he says that political correctness is “killing us as a country”, a concept he has shared along with those on the other side such as Bill Maher, who has called political correctness a “cancer on progressivism.”
Are dignity, decency, respect and decorum in fact, a part of the guiding principles which our Founding Fathers and greatest leaders have instilled in us, and which we ignore to our detriment and deterioration? Or is it a lot of silliness about style and rhetoric, having nothing to do with substance and governance?
George Washington wrote when still a teenager a book of “110 Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation”. While it is rather difficult to find a record of an insult slung by him against his enemies (yes, they were enemies then, not enemies like the press, enemies like the British Army), he was not totally immune to a critical comment. When he argued in his farewell address against Americans voting for their party loyalty rather than the common interest of the nation, (an example chosen at random, of course) he said it could enable the rise of “cunning, ambitious and unprincipled men” – stern rhetoric indeed, although I would argue carrying more dignity than “dumb as a rock”, “wacko”, “Lazy as a dog”, “low IQ individual” or “begging like a dog”.
In Thomas Jefferson’s day there were two opposing political parties, the republicans and the Federalists, but at his inauguration he strove for a civil unity.
“Every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all republicans: we are all federalists”.
The value may not have been universal. True, Alexander Hamilton, as we see in today’s famous musical, insulted Aaron Burr enough to precipitate the dual which killed him.
Hamilton had called Burr a “profligate, a voluptuary in the extreme”, and proposed that if the country were to elect Aaron Burr as president they would be “signing their own death warrant”. We could quip that in writing in such an uncivil manner, Hamilton signed his own, but a better question might be how “voluptuary” compares with “disgusting animal” or “fat slob”. Merriam-Webster defines Voluptuary as “a person whose chief interests are luxury and the gratification of sensual appetites”, so I guess not so far off, just stated in a more erudite manner. In Hamilton’s day, though, apparently, the employment of rhetoric so uncivil was considered, at least in this case, impetus for the use of lethal force in response. While I would have liked to have cited Hamilton, as such a brilliant man, as a proponent of civility, respect and dignity, I am left finding the fact that he was not always so, and the results of his lack of political correctness to be some sort of ironic object lesson in the practical worth of the value.
Lincoln, in his second inaugural address, the war being won and opportunity indeed to gloat, “Did not try to elevate his popularity by boasting of his success…nor did he denounce his enemies…he did not insult his political opponents or accuse them of despicable…motives”.
Not that he was completely afraid to offer criticism. Of his opponent he did once give in to a fiery nature and observed of Stephen Douglas, “His explanations explanatory of explanations explained are interminable”. Perhaps he gets credit for a “low IQ individual” on that one.
The call for civility in our nation is not merely historical, it is in our religious demands. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops holds that “”the dignity of the human person is the foundation of a moral vision for society”.
And finally, it is a national and not just a partisan value. Robert Michel, GOP representative from Illinois for 38 years who helped shepherd Ronald Reagan’s agenda through Congress said, “In a democracy there is a fundamental need for mutual respect. There is a need for a formal, public recognition of the ultimate dignity of those with whom we disagree – in a word, a need for civility – the public embodiment of the Golden rule. The corrosive effects of anger are slowly destroying what I would call our civic Government.”
So when Jeb Bush told Donald Trump, “You are not going to be able to insult your way to the presidency” he was obviously not making an accurate statement, since history proved him wrong, but rather speaking from an ideal, an aspiration, a statement of the way, it seemed to him and to many, that things were supposed to be.
How is this important to our nation? Is it just damaging to our sensitive ears (or eyes on Twitter) to hear our current leader call opponents, journalists, and adversaries alike:
“Animals, stone cold animals, crooked flunkies, Fake news, sick and biased agenda, disgrace, a waste, totally unqualified, crime loving, crazy, lightweight losers, lowlife, incompetent, dumb, embarrassing, mediocre, low IQ individuals, wackos , lost souls, nut jobs, no talents, total disasters, weak mentally and physically, total phony, Bozos, who cry like a baby, begs for money like a dog, clowns, dummy dopes, dumb as a rock, no honor hypocrite, desperate and weak.” To make fun of peoples looks, calling anyone who doesn’t suck up to you, ” pathetic, sad jokes, treasonous, punch drunk, sleaze bags, buffoons, failures, fools, scams, scum, , thugs, insane,” to say of prior leaders of your own party “choked like a dog”, that they are sick losers, frauds, psychos, little, dumb as a rock” (His chosen Secretary of State), “lazy as hell, that people who seek asylum here “Infest country”, other nations are “shithole countries”, that immigrants are the “worst criminals on earth”, to leave aside his nicknames of Pocahontas, goofy, sleepy and crooked.”
Other than what an adherence to norms, why is this important to our nation? Do we really need to be civil, respectful, dignified?
It is important for one major reason. Remember when we were children we were told that “sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me”? That fact is that when one calls others denigrating and dehumanizing names, long enough, publicly enough, and from a high enough lecturn, in our society, names can lead to sticks and stones.
From the presidential lecturn undocumented immigrants are called animals, and sure enough, they are now detained in conditions which we could have never tolerated before, horrendous enough to be called concentration camps.
From his bully pulpit, Trump calls for police to exercise violence. In my memory, police being told “Don’t be too nice” speech sounds like an encouragement to police abuse, and even blasted by police chiefs for endorsing police brutality.
Sure enough, it is not long before unidentified state militarized police are beating and gassing our fellow citizens. His violent rhetoric is said to have incited actual violence.
Trumps threats against protesters have been pervasive enough to gain attention in European literature, as the London School of Economics called his threats of violence against protestors as reflective of a racist oder defined by nationalism in our country.
In the words of one European academic journal, “The rise of Donald Trump relied on violence. Trumpism employed emotional evocations of violence – fear, threats, hatred and division, which at times erupted into physical displays of aggression”.
In the end, though, we need to determine whether civility, dignity, mutual respect, and decency have been compromised by the current administration, and, if we find they have, whether this is the America to which we aspire to be.
Michelle Obama pointed out that the presidency does not make the man – it reveals who he is, and that our elections, ultimately reveal who we are.
I want to believe that our history, our founding, our most revered leaders and thinkers, and, at least until recently, our public behavior and standards of rhetoric and decorum as a nation have revealed us to be one in which decency, dignity and respect are a shared American value, common ground, something which unites us.
It is up to us all now to determine whether that remains to be so.
Come home America.