The Rise of Incivility

As if we don’t have enough breaking news to keep up with, Montana Republican Congressional candidate Greg Gianforte has now been cited by the Gallatin County sheriff for misdemeanor assault against a reporter.

An audio recording and eyewitness accounts confirm that, on Wednesday, Gianforte became angry with The Guardian reporter Ben Jacobs, who asked a question about the CBO score of the latest House healthcare bill. Gianforte refused to answer, but Jacobs persisted. Then, Gianforte demanded that the reporter “get the hell out,” complaining angrily that he was “sick and tired of this.” When Jacobs refused, Gianforte grabbed him by the neck, threw him to the ground, and began punching him. Gianforte’s office released a statement defending the candidate’s action against an “aggressive reporter,” but the sheriff’s office investigation has pretty much discredited that version of the story. Jacobs tweeted that the candidate “body-slammed” him and “broke his glasses.” Fox news reporters who were present at the same event said they watched in shock as Gianforte forced Jacobs to the ground and began punching him.

This loss of self-control on the part of a candidate for public office is sad, but really shouldn’t be shocking. It is not hard at all to draw a line from the thuggish nature of the Republican Presidential candidate’s behavior on the campaign trail last year and what happened in Montana yesterday. To be fair, Donald Trump didn’t start drawing that line. He was feeding off of a level of vitriol that was already seething in the electorate among people waiting for somebody – anybody – to channel their gut-level anger at just about everything. At Trump rallies, reporters were taunted, protesters were beaten, and the candidate played to the crowds by yelling such one-liners as, “get’em out of here!” and “I wish I could hit you in the face!”

I’m quite sure that millions of people who voted for Trump did so holding their proverbial noses, judging him to be the least undesirable of two bad options. Still, given his participation in and encouragement of brutish behavior – both personally and publicly – it is understandable that many people interpret his election as the triumph of incivility.

It’s hard to assess exactly when the mainstreaming of incivility began, but it has been building at least since the 1990’s when talk radio hosts discovered they could generate huge audiences by spewing venom on air. Since the airwaves were largely deregulated in the 1980’s, so-called “shock jocks” and extremist political commentators were given free reign. The rapid rise of the Internet helped as well by allowing anybody to say anything on just about any site, and blurring the distinction between verified facts and conspiracy theories. Plus, it’s a whole lot easier to be crude and disrespectful to someone whom you are confronting on-line rather than in person.

The Gianforte incident has been met with outrage. Three Montana newspapers pulled their endorsements, saying that his behavior would not have been justifiable on the streets, let alone at a campaign event with a reporter. But unless there is a major outburst of conscience in this country and a broad consensus to close the floodgates on the raw sewage that is poisoning our public discourse, there’s no reason to think similar incidents won’t become more common – even normal.

In this era of incivility, faith communities have been thrust into the role of remedial education. George Washington, in his farewell address before stepping away from the presidency, expressed concern that freedom of religion in the new nation might become freedom from religion, with dire consequences. He wrote,

Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever can be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principal.

Two decades ago, when I was teaching American Religion at the college level, I used this quote and others to demonstrate how our nation’s founders believed that the primary purpose of religion was to teach morality – an idea that was propagated by Enlightenment philosophers who believed that basically, all religions teach the same ethical principals, and once those common ethics are identified, religion becomes unnecessary. As a confessing Christian, I took issue with this characterization, noting that religious impulses arise from experiences of the divine that give meaning and purpose to life.

But recent experience proves to me that Washington’s basic observation was correct. It was the conviction of nearly all our founders that a free society could not succeed without being a civil society. But not all of them believed, as Washington did, that civility depended on a robust religious presence. As I noted in a previous post, the increased secularization of American society has, not coincidentally, been accompanied by a rise in pure meanness – a near loss of civility – in public life.

So while the primary purpose of churches is to embody the ministry of Jesus Christ, we are now increasingly called upon to serve another function: to call for, teach, and practice civility, and to demand that the more public a person becomes, the more responsibility he or she bears to demonstrate civility.

So, among other things, churches teach people how to be polite, considerate, respectful, and kind. Sounds like kindergarten. That’s the state we are in, folks. We have sunk to such a level that we need to re-learn the lessons of pre-school. And, in addition to fulfilling our loftier purposes, faith communities – churches, synagogues, mosques, and temples – are needed to remediate our national morality.

Update 5/26/17: Score another win for incivility. Gianforte won by 7 points. 

©2017 by J. Mark Lawson

Comments

[Regina]

It costs one nothing by being polite to other people.

[Larry Boyer]

Mark, it seems to me your article is even more poignant in light of the attack today in Portland on three heroes (two of whom died) by a crazed white supremacist who was threatening two women one of whom was wearing a hijab. I think that the rhetoric by Trump on the campaign trail and actions by certain other members of the Republican Party have emboldened people like this attacker. Caused me to do a replay tonight of the movie "Schindler' List". The world is getting to be a little more scary.

[Mark Lawson]

Carol,

Thanks for your comments. Incivility is absolutely bipartisan. I’m sick of the vile rhetoric and the utterly predictable and endless partisan commentary on both sides. This has been ongoing through the last four presidential administrations and, I agree, has only gotten worse. And when the rhetoric actually encourages violence, it’s wrong no matter who says it or for what reason. When actual violence occurs, it must be condemned (as when those anarchists protesting the inauguration broke storefront windows in Washington). When it comes from a public official, that’s even more alarming. I was glad to see Gianforte’s apology. It seemed genuine, and I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt. It is troubling to me, however, that he didn’t need to apologize in order to win the race. (Maybe that’s because 2/3 of the people had already voted.) Apparently, many Montana voters did condone has behavior, saying the reporter “got what he deserved.” I just can’t condone violence under any circumstances.

Mark

[C Gersten]

What is to be said then for the protests on the left for their behavior, after all it seems that one can only take so much. While I do not condone this behavior, (which by the way he has apoligized for).
I know for certain that most of the behavior after this election is one I've never witnessed in my 50 some years on this earth! I've never seen this country go after a President like this before, I am ashamed of the Democratic behavior in all of this, yet to also add, Hilary was worried how; now President Trump was going to take the loss, how now would she say the Democratic or the Left is taking the loss? Instead of pulling together for the better of the American people, it seems their desire is to bash this President at every level. I do not agree with most of the behavior and the lack of respect shown to this President or his family! Especially when it comes to the 10 yr old son. What has happened, so power hungry, what are they afraid of losing? I don't understand why it's fine when one side does something, and yet something totally different when the other side does the same? Seems messed up to me!