Can You Fight for Civility?

Think of this as Volume 12, Number 35 of A-Clue.com, the online newsletter I've written since 1997. Enjoy.

It's the most profound question of our time.

Is there a way to enforce civility, to demand that adults in a democracy behave as adults or else. Or else what?

The last month has revealed that Republicans, from the top of their leadership to the bottom of their grassroots, are simply not interested in civil discourse. They have thrown in with the Haties as Democrats never threw in with the hippies of 40 years ago.

Those who pretend to civility, like Sen. John McCain, use that pose as a weapon, demanding it of Democrats while doing nothing to assure it among his own people. Worse are those like Sen. Charles Grassley quietly egging on the hate while pretending to be negotiating. He needs to pay a price for that.

The hatred unleashed here has been profound. Our President is routinely called names like Obongo, or compared to Hitler with no evidence other than his stated desire for health care reform and his necessary work (begun under Bush) to restart the economy by flooding it with cash.

The President is routinely dehumanized, with the excuse given that Democrats attacked President Bush and painted him too as Hitler. The word for that is projection. It's the attitude of a toddler. And we're talking about men and women in their 50s, 60s and 70s here, even 80-somethings.

It's also beside the point, because it's apparent the same hatred would now be on display, the same attempt to dehumanize, had Hillary Clinton or even John Edwards been elected last year. The same attacks are used against anyone in the media who calls people on this game, whether that's Keith Olbermann on MSNBC or your average blogger-on-the-street.I have been verbally assaulted many times, and likely will be for writing these words, by children pretending to be adults.

Regular readers here know where this comes from. The Nixon Thesis of Conflict was all about dehumanizing other Americans as some unAmerican "other," and this attitude reached its apotheosis with the Bush Administration. A generation has been raised to believe that bullying works, that the Argument Clinic is a parliamentary procedure, that their leaders are always right and the other side always has dark motives.

I have written here many times about this attitude, and how dangerous it is. I have described how it emerged from the righteous anger following Pearl Harbor, how it was bottled and used by Joe McCarthy and his allies, how Richard Nixon mass-produced it to make it our governing Thesis, a myth and a set of values people would follow for a lifetime. I have also shown how difficult it is to eradicate, how today's hate is centered on the same precincts that made rebellion against the Union in order to enslave people. 

Some have called this the "lizard brain" and those who hear its siren call can't be talked to, as was found at various Town Halls this last month. The other side does not offer up any facts about health care, just ideology, rhetoric, and (eventually) dehumanizing hatred. When called on it they project their dark attitude on the person disagreeing with them. I've gotten in more flame wars this last month than in the last 20 years.

When children behave this way adults are told they need a firm hand. Give the kids a time-out. Ignore them. Argument does no good, only isolation helps. And if you hit them you may justify their attitudes in their own little minds — child abusers were abused children.

But what can you do when the people at issue are adults, and if they represent a substantial portion of the population. Not a majority, certainly — I doubt the 5% margin of last November has gone lizard brain since then. 

What the President has been told, by those who have his interests at heart, is to make the best deal he can with his fellow Democrats and push that deal through the Congress, then let the green shoots of recovery start to tamp down the anger a little bit. It's clear now that consensus is impossible in the present atmosphere, they assert. Lay down some party discipline and govern.

Easier said than done. Business has dominated American political life since the Lincoln Administration because businesses know how to play both sides. The Plains State Democrats, from rotten boroughs (rotten in the British sense of unpopulated) like North Dakota, Nebraska and Montana, see the money from business lobbyists as their only protection from the lizard brains in their constituencies, and to an extent they are right.

Hillary Clinton tried negotiating health reform in private. President Obama has left the details up to the Congress. Neither approach has worked, in part because the mob has cowed those businesses who most need reform — buyers of health insurance — into silence on ideological grounds.

The best hope for winning the present argument lies in those businesses. The President could address the Business Roundtable. (That's its head, Joe Castellani, at right.) Of he could create his own "buyers council," consisting of CEOs tired of being pushed around by insurers who want to reduce their own health care costs in order to remain competitive.

The President could go to offices with wellness programs and talk of how savings are achieved. What he must do is emphasize the buyers' interest in this market, a voice that has been all-but-drowned-out by rhetoric ginned-up in part by the sellers, and emphasize that the status quo is untenable. He should wave about recent notices of price increases from major insurers, point out how those insurers now want consumers to pay, not 20%, but 35% of their bills in all cases, and rally the buyers to demand reform.

Another important step would be to go beyond just giving press conference opportunities to bloggers from The Huffington Post, and hand out some exclusives. Bring Markos Moulitsas to the White House and let him into the Oval Office. Bring Jane Hamsher. Bring Sam Stein. Friendly outlets need to be cultivated, and those who hate you ignored. Some quiet investigations from the FCC or the Justice Department might also be useful. Lower the temperature or feel the heat — it's the language bullies like Rupert Murdoch understand.

But none of this answers the larger question, which is how do we make the idea of insurrection illegitimate, how do we make certain that those who call for violence will have no seat at the negotiating table, so that leaders of the Republican Party will call off the dogs.

The majority of Americans still want this President to succeed. They still want recovery, still want reform. But the majority has been cowed into silence.

When Richard Nixon faced the same situation he bent to the liberal will on major issues but fed his own base rhetoric, much of it written by William Safire and delivered by Spiro Agnew (left). Something like that is needed now, because I'm out of cheeks to turn, and if the majority is going to fight for this President, we have to know he has our back.

If you're playing the 1969 Game at home, who will be Spiro Agnew now?