The Coarsening of the Public Discourse
I make an effort to avoid political topics in this column.
The main reason for that is that I want to have conversations
about honor, and those conversations work best when people are
thoughtful and engaged, when they reflect carefully.
Political conversations do not often proceed that way -
they almost always involve powerful emotions which lead
people to dig into entrenched positions.
There are more selfish reasons for that decision, as
well - the simple fact of the matter is that I worry what
might happen to me if my political stances became known. I
consider it very likely that there would be damage done both
to personal relationships and employment opportunities. It is
not supposed to be that way - our society is supposed to be
open to all viewpoints. But the reality is that it is not.
conservative viewpoints are silenced and stigmatized.
Here is a good reflection on that reality,
from a man who points out that it was much easier for him to
be known as gay than it is to be known as conservative.
The stigmatization of conservativism is particularly
important for this column, because the event
which makes me feel compelled to address an explicitly
political topic was a meeting of something called the
Omaha Free Speech Society.
The topic for the morning's discussion was "The Obama
Legacy". To initiate the conversation, we heard from three
speakers - one was the 2018 Democrat nominee for Congress
from Nebraska's second district, another was a radio host
for a station which serves a predominantly African-American
audience (he himself is African-American), and the third
is a radio host for a predominantly conservative radio
station. They followed their expected roles - the first
two were full-throated Obama supporters, and the third
was there to provide some level of counter-balance.
The initial statement was delivered by the former
Congressional candidate - who centered her remarks around
the idea that President Obama's legacy is that of a
scandal-free administration. And while there were many
variations on that theme during the hour-long conversation,
that is really what set the tone for the morning.
There is only one problem with this statement: it
is not true.
Of course, we must recognize that people of good
conscience sometimes disagree, and in this case there is
room for dispute because `scandal-free' is a very vague
characterization. However, what I am about to write
should not be controversial - it is well-substantiated.
The reality is that there is a long list of scandals
associated with the Obama administration. To his credit,
our conservative presenter offered some pushback by
mentioning the Benghazi scandal. However, his comment
was brief - more of a nudge-back than a push-back -
and it was quickly buried by people who did not want
to acknowledge it. No mention was
made of many other problematic events - like the
press manipulation which surrounded the Iran deal,
the deception used to present Obamacare, Fast
and Furious, Uranium One, and . . . you get the idea.
In my mind, the absolute worst of the scandals which
took place during the Obama administration was the way
the IRS was used to intimidate and silence conservative
groups. Again, I am not making up a conspiracy theory -
the person who was responsible for the activity,
Lois Lerner, confessed publicly that this was done.
Frankly, I think that should halt conversation:
The Obama administration used the IRS to silence
political opponents.
Say that out loud to yourself.
That is the single most corrupt action undertaken by
an American presidential administration. Ever. It is two
orders of magnitude worse than the petty
information-gathering burglary that
drove President Nixon from office.
The only action I can imagine which would be more corrupt
would be if an intelligence service, like the FBI, were to
make use of fabricated evidence, such as the Steele Dossier,
in an attempt to undermine the campaign of the sitting
president's political opponent.
And there is mounting evidence that the Obama
administration engaged in that activity as well.
Again, this is all public knowledge. Anyone making
a good-faith effort to learn about the conservative
point of view would have no trouble at all finding
this information. And while progressive partisans
will view the stories listed above in a different
light, it simply is not possible to deny that these
are scandals - they are noteworthy events which have
the potential to reflect very badly on the persons
involved. They are scandalous. I can think of only
two ways to explain a person who would ignore those
things and declare the Obama administration to have
been scandal free.
One of those is that the presenters were deliberately
being untruthful. I don't believe that to be the case; they
seemed like perfectly nice, sincere people, and I like
to believe that people are being honest until I have a
reason to believe otherwise.
The other is that they remain ignorant either of the
events or of their scandalous nature. That is plausible,
disappointingly, because the national news media has
done everything in its power to bury those stories, to
minimize their importance in the minds of the public.
That prospect may well be the more terrifying of
the two. As I said before, all that is required to see
outside of the narrative created by the press is to
engage in a small amount of critical thinking, to seek
out one or two sources which take an opposing point of
view. Yet these ostensibly well-informed public figures
did not take that step. They never questioned their own
assumptions, never entertained a challenge to their
beliefs.
Now, it certainly is fair to argue that I should
have provided that challenge. The point of the forum
is to allow people to do so in a civil manner, and I
have spoken up and said controversial things in the
past. So it is reasonable to ask why I did not feel
able to in this instance.
The answer is politeness. It feels rude to confront
people in public, to claim that they are speaking
untruth. I would not have used the word `liar', but
that certainly is the way such a challenge would have
been interpreted - and it is a really harsh thing to
say.
Since I did not want to say something
which might be perceived as a personal attack, I
hesitated. I searched my mind for the most tactful
way to present my challenge, a way to challenge the
presenter's opening statement which would not come
across as impugning her character. Then I spent a
moment running through my facts, to make sure my position
was well grounded. And finally I spent a moment trying
to find a succinct way to say what I wanted to say,
since I wanted to be considerate of the time and
opinions of the more than fifty other people present.
In short, I stopped myself in an effort to maintain
the civility of the gathering,
and in that moment of hesitation, the opportunity passed.
Compare that thought process with the contribution of
another member of the group, another radio talk show host
(notice a theme?). This person commented that Obama was
elected after George W. Bush, because voters wanted
someone who could complete a sentence, then Trump was
elected after Obama, because he appeals to white racists.
Impressive, isn't it? In just a few sentences, he managed
to insinuate that half the people in the room were stupid
racists. You have to give him credit - it takes hard work
to achieve that level of appalling rudeness.
The contrast is striking - and offers another reason
for my hesitation. When someone is willing to throw out
such extraordinary, outrageous bombshells, it is difficult
to know how to respond. Do you defend yourself angrily? Do
you laugh it off as ridiculous? Do you carefully expose the
untruths? Unfortunately, if you take a moment to think
about your response, the opportunity moves past.
Another question to ask is whether I was the only one
who might have spoken up. After all, I only attend the
forum once every few months - what about the organizers
or someone who attends the forum more frequently? Surely
they have better standing from which to raise questions.
What about the conservative presenter? That was supposed
to be his role.
I do not want to be too critical of any of those people,
especially the presenter - I have listened
to his show on the radio, and he is a good and thoughtful
talk host. I think he is a firm conservative, so I do not
want to bash him for shying away from confrontation in
this case. Honestly, I suspect his reluctance was born
of the same feelings as my own - he did not want to be
rude or confrontational with the other presenters and,
like a good public speaker, he was trying to be sensitive
to the mood of the crowd.
I believe most of the other conservatives in the room
felt similarly - we hesitated out of a desire to be
considerate, and in doing so lost our opportunity to
respond. That is extraordinarily frustrating, and after
a while I decided to leave - it felt like a waste of time
to sit through a discussion based almost entirely on
untruths. That frustration is a large part of the reason
I only attend the forum sporadically. The speech really
is not very open, and (more importantly) neither are the
minds.
Unfortunately, that is not a very satisfying response.
When considerate, civil voices choose not to participate
in the discourse, it rapidly coarsens. The loudest and
rudest voices dominate, particularly if they do not
feel a very strong allegiance to the truth - by which
I mean a strong enough allegiance to seek out alternative
points of view, to question their assumptions.
That is quite a dilemma, because I believe the
Omaha Free Speech forum
to be a microcosm of the national conversation.
The rudest, most obnoxious voices have come
to dominate the public discourse, and they do not pay
much attention to whether their statements are true.
Polite people are driven away from the public
conversation, leaving it in the hands of those
who are perfectly content to distort reality to
suit their political agendas.
Ironically, progressives have been braying that
exact same
complaint ever since Donald Trump was elected, seeking
to lay responsibility for the coarsening of our public
discourse at his feet and at the feet of his supporters.
But ask yourself, which political party has dominated
the public discourse for the past several decades? It
has been the Democrats, the progressives. The loudest,
rudest, most vulgar voices in the conversation are
the progressive voices.
The effects are tangible. Consider that the nicest
thing the press said about Ronald Reagan was
that he was an amiable dunce, George H. W. Bush was
smeared as a warmongering racist, George W. Bush was
portrayed as an unintelligent draft-dodger as well as
a warmongering racist, and Mitt Romney was a misogynistic
tax cheat. Mr. Romney is a particularly telling case,
because he is a cross between a choir boy and an Eagle
scout - in fact, he may literally be both of
those things - and yet dishonest and rude progressives
did not hesitate to de-humanize him.
Meanwhile, the same progressives who accuse Trump
of coarsening the national discourse, the same ones
who have smeared every conservative political candidate
for the last thirty years - those people promote and
defend groups like Antifa, and BAMN (By Any Means
Necessary), which engage in violence in order
to achieve their political ends.
In short, the hesitation and consideration of polite
people has left the public conversation - both at the
Omaha Free Speech Society and in the nation as a whole
- in the hands of the rudest, most obnoxious portion
of our society. It is hard to know how to respond; it
feels like a waste of time to try to engage with people
whose minds already are closed, and who will smear you
as stupid and racist if you disagree with them. On the
other hand, simply walking away leaves progressives to
infuse the public discourse with hate, as they have been
doing for the last three decades.
References
Abd, Phillip.
Tea Party Rejects IRS Apology, Republicans
Vow Investigation.
ABC News, May 10 2013.
URL: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/irs-admits-targeting-conservative-groups/story?id=19151646
Greene, Chad Felix
The Stigma of Being Conservative.
The Federalist, Dec 11 2018.
URL: http://thefederalist.com/2018/12/11/stigma-conservative-politics-worse-stigma-gay/
Krauthammer, Charles.
The Gruber Confession.
The Washington Post, Nov 13 2014.
URL: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/charles-krauthammer-the-gruber-confession/2014/11/13/474595bc-6b6b-11e4-9fb4-a622dae742a2_story.html?utm_term=.2dde3e77f478
Samuels, David.
The Aspiring Novelist Who Became Obama's
Foreign Policy Guru.
The New York Times, May 5 2016.
URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/08/magazine/the-aspiring-novelist-who-became-obamas-foreign-policy-guru.html
Solomon, John.
FBI email chain may provide most damning
evidence of FISA abuses yet.
The Hill, Dec 5 2018.
URL: https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/419901-fbi-email-chain-may-provide-most-damning-evidence-of-fisa-abuses-yet
