Civility is not optional

Mark Penn:

In America, when we get angry at our political opponents, we take out negative ads. In too much of the rest of the world, they take out machetes, ricin or worse. It is what has separated us from the other major powers for 200 years.

This is even truer today in the 21st century. Think of what happens to the opposition in China, Russia, Iran or even Saudi Arabia. We are the only major power on earth with this distinction. Yes, there are important countries, including the UK, France, Germany, Japan and India, where democracy reigns but they are not the leading powers or the leading military forces in the world today. Of those, America remains the only one of the world’s superpowers based on personal freedom and constitutional order.

It is precisely the orderly transfer of power from the losers to the winners that has separated us from the pack. We have, unfortunately, over the last two years turned our democracy into a “Saturday Night Live” parody of itself. And the cause was not Donald Trump’s election but the failure to digest that election and move on. This error is now being repeated in the aftermath of Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court, with new threats of impeachments and investigations.
The recent turn to the criminalization of politics and the politicization of all of our institutions has degraded our democracy and, in the long run, only benefits those who want to get rid of democratic institutions altogether. Those in the Kremlin and the politburo of China’s state party are laughing at us. Why would anyone want such a system, they ask?

It’s important to remember that John F. Kennedy defeated Richard Nixon in 1960 by a rather controversial whisker in Chicago; Nixon licked his wounds and came back in 1968. George Bush won in 2000 by an even slimmer margin in Florida after a bruising battle that went to the Supreme Court. But Nixon and Al Gore put democracy, the need to promote civil harmony, and the protection of our institutions above settling political scores.

That’s not what happened after the unexpected but decisive electoral college win by Trump. Back in the ’30s, President Franklin Roosevelt became frustrated with our checks-and-balances system and tried to pack the Supreme Court. Luckily, saner heads in Congress stopped him. And the Supreme Court, as it evolved without FDR’s destructive packing, went on to end segregation, to create a right to privacy and abortion, and to proclaim same-sex marriage the law of the nation. Had FDR packed the court and discredited it, the court likely could never have made these later reforms.

If you allow it to do so, our politics always evolves. Today’s winners become tomorrow’s losers and the public swings not based on feverish moments but over long periods of time toward freedom and justice for all. It’s what makes this a great country. This may be a time of greater conservatism on the court but, most assuredly, over time the pendulum will swing again — or Congress will be pressed to actually solve problems rather than allowing them to be decided by the courts.

The idea that if you lose an election, you should delegitimize the winner, is dangerous business that, once put in motion, can swing out of control. Similarly, if you lose a Supreme Court nomination fight, impugning the court as a whole is no less dangerous.
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The Democrats have made a mistake in their reaction to losing the 2016 election and it appears to be an ongoing one.  Their Kavanaugh debacle was just one of the latest that has ramped up GOP enthusiasm and could keep the Democrats from getting the midterm bounce that out of power parties usually get.  The insistence on incivility by many elected Democrats will also haunt them in the future.  It is already backfiring on some of them as the demonstrators chased Pelosi from a restaurant.  I strongly disagree with this incivility on both sides.  It is wrong to deny anyone a quiet meal.