In 1856, South Carolina Rep. Preston Brooks walked over to the United States Senate chamber and repeatedly beat Massachusetts Sen. Charles Sumner over the head with a cane.
Now that’s a fighter.
Of course, Brooks was mad Sumner gave a speech denouncing slavery that threw shade at his uncle, so this was no virtuous fight — but I’m sure the other racists in the room were proud he was standing up for their values.
Is that what voters want when they say they want a candidate who fights for the issues they care about? Hard to say, but every day I watch the news and think we might soon find out.
Candidates and politicians are becoming increasingly combative and caustic. Acting childish gets them on cable news, makes for great email fundraising copy and draws standing ovations at party gatherings. But it has the downside of inspiring violence, like when a deranged Bernie Sanders supporter shot up a congressional baseball practice a few years back, or when a violent mob stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6. Maybe politicians and partisans think it’s a decent tradeoff. I don’t know — they keep doing it.
As a candidate, Donald Trump rode a wave of insults and bravado to the White House, with Democrat and Republican challengers unable to fight back effectively.
Hillary Clinton tried taking the high road, which didn’t work. Then she took the low road, which also didn’t work. Republicans like Marco Rubio tried the same approach, eventually throwing haymakers about Trump’s multiple bankruptcies, his outsourcing of tie-manufacturing labor to a country Trump was threatening with a trade war.
Nothing worked. Trump won and it’s been a race to the bottom ever since.
Now there’s Trump wannabes, like Florida Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz, who wants you to know he’ll never say “Excuse me!” and who is best known for being investigated for sex trafficking a minor and piggish quotes like: “But why is it that the women with the least likelihood of getting pregnant are the ones most worried about having abortions? Nobody wants to impregnate you if you look like a thumb.”
It is surprising that these comments are not deal breakers among his voters, but every day Gaetz shows the new depths of what they are willing to tolerate.
Gaetz may be the worst. Maybe it’s an act or maybe he’s authentically awful. But for many others, being awful is just a campaign strategy.
At a debate, then-Sen. Kamala Harris called then-presidential candidate Joe Biden racist, or cozy with racists, or a supporter of racist policies. But I guess that just shows how far we’ve evolved as a society because instead of assailing her on the Senate floor, Biden chose her as his running mate.
Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman has received tons of positive press for his combativeness in his Senate campaign against Dr. Mehmet Oz. Granted, it’s much lighter than some of these other examples, but it’s still noteworthy for all of the praise he’s getting.
“Senate candidate John Fetterman trolls Dr. Oz by trying to get him inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame” writes the Independent. “Why John Fetterman’s Twitter trolling of Dr. Oz works so well,” explains MSNBC. “Could John Fetterman S@#%post His Way to the Senate?” asks the Daily Beast.
Seems like Fetterman’s the fighter these publications have been looking for!
One of Pennsylvania’s sitting senators, Bob Casey, who has been referred to as “boring” and “dull” by his home state publications in surprisingly glowing profiles, got in on the action by tweeting a meme attacking Oz and asking, “Did I do this right, @JohnFetterman?”
You did, Bob! Hopefully, it gets you on MSNBC, where you can take credit for your intern’s tweet and put the clip in a fundraising email.
I could go on.
I’m not naive. Some things are worth fighting for and going negative is often a winning strategy that brings contrast and highlights your opponent’s flaws. But it seems we are mistaking rudeness as fighting for issues and instead of expecting our elected officials to portray our best qualities, we now want them to act out our worst.
As we become more negative, as voters tolerate more rudeness, we lose sight of the fact that many people disagree with us and that compromise is a requirement to get anything done.
Why did modest gun control legislation pass recently? Because Congress found common ground. Why does basically everything else fail? Because everyone wants a fighter and to compromise is to be weak.
Don’t we want better?
Follow Matt on Twitter @FlemingWords
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