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Subscribe to RSSPaul Krugman’s New York Times column: “[T]he truth is that we are a deeply divided nation and are likely to remain one for a long time. By all means, let’s listen to each other more carefully; but what we’ll discover, I fear, is how far apart we are. For the great divide in our politics isn’t really about pragmatic issues, about which policies work best; it’s about differences in those very moral imaginations Mr. Obama urges us to expand, about divergent beliefs over what constitutes justice.”
David Brooks’: "President Obama gave a wonderful speech in Tucson on Wednesday night. He didn’t try to explain the rampage that occurred there. Instead, he used the occasion as a national Sabbath — as a chance to step out of the torrent of events and reflect... Of course, even a great speech won’t usher in a period of civility. Speeches about civility will be taken to heart most by those people whose good character renders them unnecessary. Meanwhile, those who are inclined to intellectual thuggery and partisan one-sidedness will temporarily resolve to do better but then slip back to old habits the next time their pride feels threatened."
National Journal’s Brownstein: “[W]hen political arguments are routinely framed as threats to America’s fundamental character, the odds rise that the most disturbed among us will be tempted to resist the governing agenda by any means necessary.”
"An ultimate fighter wishes he could take back the fighting words he flung at the President. In the aftermath of the Tucson, Ariz., shootings that left six dead and 14 injured, Jacob Volkmann said he regrets saying he would like to fight President Obama and 'knock some sense into that idiot.' 'I would never make that comment if that shooting happened first,' the 30-year-old UFC lightweight told the Huffington Post."
"President Bill Clinton will appear at a campaign rally with Rahm Emanuel in Chicago next week," Roll Call reports, adding, " The event will be held at the Chicago Cultural Center at 11 a.m. Tuesday."
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Did you guys happen to check the comments posted to yesterday's First Thoughts? Asking if the civility will last is a silly question...it didn't even make it 24 hours.
What Happened Yesterday?
Without a doubt our President's speech in Tucson was perfect in tone and words. President Obama spoke to our better angels, seeking unity, a call for rational debate, and a time to end poisonous hatred. I saw signs of civility for…almost 12 hours.
It didn't take long before the drumbeat of partisanship could be heard once again. First Read started relatively civil, but when the flood-gates opened, by page 4 the dialogue had returned to ugly, nasty, hateful. The same thing happened on the national scene.
Instead of showing leadership and going with the President on Air Force One, John Boehner went to a cocktail party with fellow Republicans as they planned to pass a bill to repeal the health care law. From my vantage point, the Speaker of the House did not want to upset his GOP/TP base and show any sign of a willingness to compromise.
The Tea Party is doubling-down on their bet as evidenced by the Tucson Tea Party co-founder Trent Humphries who blames Giffords for getting herself shot. Then we have Joe Wilson's (R-SC) "You Lie" slogan now being offered on commemorative assault rifles. Is this what the country has become?
Joe Scarborough said he wants his party back. Who has taken it? Well, the Tea Party of course. Those who are paying attention know that organizations like the Oathkeepers, Minutemen, John Birch Society and others play a major role in Tea Party activities. News organizations like Fox News provide the information outlet and big business (Koch brothers) provides the financial backing.
Although Joe is on every morning, he hasn't been paying attention. His Grand Old Party is gone…gone to the Tea Party and they have no interest in giving it up. They are not about compromise, they want our President to fail, and they are unwilling to seek unity and rational debate. Whenever our President does well, fear increases and the dialogue becomes even more vile as reflected on First Read, pages 3-9.
Da Noid:
We are on the same page on this one. The horse is already out of the barn. Too late to close the door.
First Read was always going the be a challenging landscape for civility and elevated discourse.
It's pretty hard to work the tone of President Obama's gracious, concilliatory, soothing remarks at the Arizona memorial service into the toxic environment here...like trying to cross-breed a dog with a cat.
You could see that many (but not all) First Read regulars were struggling to follow President Obama's lead.
Was there ever any real question that First Read would ultimately return to its default settings?
Da Noid, the atmosphere over there got so poisonous it was very discouraging.
Thanks to those on the Right AND Left who tried to keep it sane for a while. Before lunch the battle was already lost in a deluge of hateful, hurtful comments. It's still a battle worth fighting though, because;
Language has consequences.
Clearly none of you ever watched CatDog on Cartoon Network...or was it Nickelodeon?
EDIT: crap, crap, crap! Thanks for BALEETING my post, crazy posting system! GAH.
I was deeply saddened by how badly yesteredays comment board went. Progressives allowing themselves to fall in traps, and being as bad as some of the conservatives. There were bright spots, but wow is the hatred in that thread just demoralizing. On both sides.
All I can think of is making politics what Christina dreamed it could be. That is a huge challenge, one that can only be met through perseverance and hard work.
Clearly, people think they'll win friends and influence enemies by shoving their opinions down the opposition's throat.
Why not rename the Republican party the Tea party? If the shoe fits....
"An ultimate fighter wishes he could take back the fighting words he flung at the President. In the aftermath of the Tucson, Ariz., shootings that left six dead and 14 injured, Jacob Volkmann said he regrets saying he would like to fight President Obama and 'knock some sense into that idiot.' 'I would never make that comment if that shooting happened first,' the 30-year-old UFC lightweight told the Huffington Post."
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Now I love me some UFC, though I can't recall the face of the quoted fighter at the moment. But all things on the table...you fight for a living. Really, at face value, what insight, knowledge, whatever do you believe you have that the President of the United States does not have? And even at the human level, what do you believe you have that causes you to be correct that he does not have...what is giving you "sense" and what exactly is preventing him from having it enough to compel you beat it into him?
If this is your resolution, I'll take his lack of sense over your confidence in your own sense any day, thank you.
Is Krugman really trying to walk back his totally inappropriate remarks? Has the opprobrium heaped on him had an effect?
I somehow doubt it. However, given that the family meeting of the Sulzbergers is going to resemble a gathering of scalded cats, I would not be surprised to find him in the position of fall guy.
I wonder if Comcast will find him an opening? How many jobs are there for debunked economists?
Yesterday was rough. THEN, on Hannity, I understood why. Instead of trying to move in another direction, all he could do was run a collage of things said by the left that would be considered mean-spirited. Never mind that the clips had nothing to do with promoting voilence, just crap like "but the Republicans have to sit in the backseat". Typical nonsense. Typical mis-direction or re-direction. Somehow, the word has gotten distributed to followers to get 'out there' and do much more of the same.
When a partisan thinker says we are bad but not as bad as you are it's a lost cause. Writers who make their living trashing their political opponents are the last people we should look to for advise.
My take on it is if it is bad now, why wasn't it bad before? It was, and we have all listened to it get worse and worse, with no one stepping up to condemn it. Now all the silly pundits are trying to make judgments....why weren't they calling out the lies and the violent rhetoric when it began in 2007? Why now? It could have made a difference. I don't blame anyone but this horrible person for this tragedy, but who didn't know that something terrible was on its way? You can't advocate anarchy and overthrow of the government without violence. And also, what an irony that those who hate the government fight the hardest and meanest to get into it and stay in it. If violent rhetoric is bad now, it has always been bad. Where have the voices been to push back against it from the start.
Hey Sarah "Bloody" Palin
Its been two days since the Haiti earthquake anniversary and still nothing from you.
Did I miss your tweet? Cause I remeber YOU asking us "Not to forget"
divisive airhead is what you are
ahhh the civility.
Wow. That was extremely well put by David Brooks.
Those of us who don't shrill when we talk or post are the ones that are really listening. Everyone else is just thinking about what they are going to shout next, without even hearing or trying to understand what is being said. If we could all just learn to pause ten seconds before responding (reacting?) to something said we might speak with a softer tone but still our voices will be listened to.
You can say and do all the PC crap ...bottom line the republicans are "BUMS"
Civility is not something leftists want. This is the chaos that they desire. They are Alinskyites and these are the Alinsky rules they routinely follow:
3. "Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy. Look for ways to increase insecurity, anxiety and uncertainty. (This happens all the time. Watch how many organizations under attack are blind-sided by seemingly irrelevant arguments that they are then forced to address.)
8. "Keep the pressure on, with different tactics and actions, and utilize all events of the period for your purpose."
10. "The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition. It is this unceasing pressure that results in the reactions from the opposition that are essential for the success of the campaign."
13. Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. In conflict tactics there are certain rules that [should be regarded] as universalities. One is that the opposition must be singled out as the target and 'frozen.'...
"...any target can always say, 'Why do you center on me when there are others to blame as well?' When your 'freeze the target,' you disregard these [rational but distracting] arguments.... Then, as you zero in and freeze your target and carry out your attack, all the 'others' come out of the woodwork very soon. They become visible by their support of the target...'
"One acts decisively only in the conviction that all the angels are on one side and all the devils on the other." (pps.127-134
Rules for Radicals, by Saul Alinsky)
Jullou, how does this help things?
What's this fixation Conservatives have with Saul Alinsky and "Rules for Radicals". I've never read it. I don't personally know any Liberals who've said they've read it. I haven't seen it discussed on any of the left-leaning sites I read.
We'd do a lot better if we'd quit trying to keep the ridiculous quarrels of the 60's alive. Put it to bed, for crying out loud, these are different times, with different people.
Nice feint, John, but it does not change the facts.
What exactly do you think Fiesty and Ron are doing with their ad hominem attacks?
Exposing the tactics is one way of fighting them- the other is to treat them like fifth grade bullies- and ignore them.
Thanks, Jollou, for taking the time to post this.
Major problem with that idea NJNB, that would assume the left is organized enough to put together that kind of front. In all honesty, the left and I am a leftie so I am willing to admit this, is a bunch of cats headed in the same general direction.
You give us way more credit then we deserve. The right is really where lockstep happens.
"I don't belong to an organized political party. I'm a Democrat." -- Will Rogers
I think people should be nicer. That is my wish on the freeway and at the grocery store. But, we are a bit crass about many things in this country - not just politics. It is part of the "male energy" that is very much part of the American persona. This energy seeks validation - even glory. And it promotes winners and losers. It promotes weaponry. Our political debates are now very much like the debates on the all sports channels. Trash talking is very important.
One more very important thing. The right wing likes guns - the right wing loves guns!! Lefties are squeamish about guns. So the right wingnuts will kill more than the left wingnuts. That is axiomatic.
Jullou:
It is Frank Luntz, Roger Ailes and the word smiths of the far right that employ the techniques you cite. They preach in private sessions with Republican politicians that questions that naturally arise in the course of the day should be ignored or covered up by stating the same mantra over and over on the issues they want to talk about. And they counsel that only visceral language be employed in small soundbites to drum their message into the brains of the populace. This has been going on for almost twenty years. Their guidance of the right has done more to dumb down debate in this country than any other influence. It has also made politics much meaner. And it has promoted imagery over substance - especially the image of being tough and never backing down.
Civility ..... is hard to obtain today. However, the facts remain that we were shown three different styles/types of leadership on Tuesday by two elected officials and one wanna be
S Palin - released her video enough said
J Boneher - did not have time on his social calendard to deal with a national tragedy.......... we will have to work on this scheduling problems
B Obama - was present in the moment, offered us calm leadership, turned a sad event into a celebration of life and liverty.
I know which style/type of leadership I thought was best for me and my country, what about you? Nno matter what party affiliation you have left/right/ middle there were three good examples of what to expect from the Speaker, the POTUS and the tweeter. Which is best for our nation, children........Which example would you choose for your child to follow?
Good post! You framed the choices very nicely of course one would choose the POTUS from the way your question was framed. This is what is done constantly by the POLLS the way a question is framed they are biased to get a specific response. I do like the way you phrased your strawman argument. KUDOS good post.
OK, then look at something that's been polled consistently for many years.
President Obama is STILL more popular than Reagan or Clinton at the same point in their presidencies.
Mixed Bag
First Read was always going the be a challenging landscape for civility and elevated discourse.
It's pretty hard to work the tone of President Obama's gracious, concilliatory, soothing remarks at the Arizona memorial service into the toxic environment here...like trying to cross-breed a dog with a cat.
You could see that many (but not all) First Read regulars were struggling to follow President Obama's lead.
Was there ever any real question that First Read would ultimately return to its default settings?
Dear MB: Since the announcement of Barack Obama as a Presidential candidate, there has been nothing but the most hideous insults slung his way. After the primary, then things really got bad. Admittedly Bush lost a lot of his devotees simply due to the wars and the lies that got us into the wars. I really do not recall a lot of name-calling other than "idiot" and that kind of crap. Most of the insults if that is what you want to call them were statements of differing positions......now I know someone will get on here about a bunch of stuff that, even though not conciliatory, was not about death threats, overthrow of the government nor killing imagery and words, so let's get past that before we even get started. How do you think his supporters feel to hear him called everything, the Anti-Christ, a nazi, communist, hear people at Palin's rally say "kill him" without being called out, guns at rallies, hear the first ever screaming out at a joint session of congress of a disrepesctful "you lie", have every pundit on cable nuancing his every word, his every move, his every look, the nastiness about his wife, on a constant 24/7 basis without eventually having to just get pissed off enough that one finally has to begin to answer back. I am 67 and have lived through the assassinations of JFK, RFK, MLK and seen this country become its own "terrorist" country. You can't go to a grocery store or the movies or a shopping mall without people getting killed. And those that espouse that type of violent rhetoric should be told in no uncertain terms to sit down and shut up, no matter who they are. Again, at my age, I have totally witnessed the dumbing down of America, the lack of good public schools with real education that fits our growing needs. We are evermore becoming a corporate state. I doubt if anyone on these threads is a top 2% of the country, yet there is a constant shoring up of that 2% while the rest of us are quickly being dropped into poverty. The widening maw of capitalism is now bolstered by the courts, the corporations, the military industrial complex and the government. Want to know where your tax dollars are going? They are being spent on subsidies for every rich corporation on the face of the earth, while the backbone of the middle class is being crushed, not only crushed but asking, begging, to be crushed even more. Without a strong middle class and a way to move upward we will all end up being poorly paid, poorly served by our government and poorly treated. Just look around....how many parents can stay home and raise their kids because they are working two or three jobs between the parents and the parents still can't afford to live a decent life. A lot of kids really have no parents and raise themselves with little more than the intelligence and companionship of their equally immature peers to survive. All this is based on cold-blooded capitalism. There is nothing wrong with wealth, there is nothing wrong with wanting to accumulate it, however, with wealth SHOULD come responsibility, including responsibility for this country, for its populations and infrastructure. If you want your country back maybe you should decide to prioritize according to the needs of the middle class and begin again to strengthen that backbone before our American civilization crumbles. Isn't that what happens to everything that becomes too large to fail, it eats up everything in its path, crushes everything in its path, and when everything is gone, and there is no soul or sustenance left, then it finally collapses under its own weight. That's what almost happened in 2008, and it will continue to happen until we, the people, get a clue.
In many parts of the country, rural folk in particular flew their flags upside down when Obama was elected President. Where is the civility, where is the loyalty? Don't be fooled into thinking that civility in tone will greatly change this violent, violent nation. As they say in the South where I grew up, "Butter wouldn't melt in his mouth -- but he bears watching." The problem of partisanship is a double edged sword. Some crazy wingnuts get violent. Others don't get mad, they just work silently behind the scenes to thwart an honest press and an honest debate. George H.W. Bush was very civil in his tone. But he was downright demagogic in his campaign against Dukakis - shifting the campaign to the pledge of allegiance and Willy Horton. But he charmed the average voter with his pork rhinds and cowboy boots. And he got Loretta Lynn to campaign for him.