Sign of the times

It’s beginning to look like maybe US politicians simply aren’t interested in restoring civility to American politics. The fight over who’s really promoting violence continues, even as we see evidence that they reject opportunities to promote civility.

Mark DeMoss is an evangelical Christian and Republican who was once an aide to Jerry Falwell, and who served as an unpaid advisor to Mitt Romney’s unsuccessful campaign for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination. He and Lanny Davis, a Jewish Democrat, started the CivilityProject.org in January 2009, before President Obama was inaugurated, because of what DeMoss saw as an already vicious tone in American politics.

Yesterday, DeMoss announced he was shutting down the project. American politicians, it seems, weren’t interested in committing to civility.

The pledge he sent to all US Governors and Members of Congress—585 elected politicians—was simple:

• I will be civil in my public discourse and behavior.
• I will be respectful of others whether or not I agree with them.
• I will stand against incivility when I see it.

In the two years since, only three politicians—all from the US Congress—signed the pledge (Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, independent from Connecticut, Representative Frank Wolfe, R-VA and Representative Sue Myrick, R-NC. Said DeMoss in his letter to the three: “I must admit to scratching my head as to why only three members of Congress, and no governors, would agree to what I believe is a rather low bar.”

It was a very low bar, deliberately, and the project was co-founded with Lanny Davis so that, DeMoss thought, neither Democrats nor Republicans would feel they were being lectured to by the other side. He hoped they’d be more successful with a bipartisan approach. That’s not how things turned out:

“Perhaps one of the most surprising results of this project has been the tone and language used by many of those posting comments on our website and following articles on various media websites about the project. Many of them could not be printed or spoken in public media due to vulgar language and vicious personal attacks. Sadly, a majority of these came from fellow conservatives.”

Talking with the New York Times, DeMoss elaborated:

“The worst e-mails I received about the civility project were from conservatives with just unbelievable language about communists, and some words I wouldn’t use in this phone call. This political divide has become so sharp that everything is black and white, and too many conservatives can see no redeeming value in any liberal or Democrat. That would probably be true about some liberals going the other direction, but I didn’t hear from them.”

There are indeed some liberals who say similar things about all Republicans or all conservatives, though I haven’t personally seen the same level of aggressiveness or incivility among Democrats, nor had it thrust before me in the same way the other side’s has been.

All of that’s irrelevant. When kids argue, one of them often says, “He started it!” And then the adult will say, “I don’t care WHO started it, I’M stopping it!” What we need are some adults among the politicians (and also the opinion media, but that’s another thing altogether).

I just can’t see the adults taking charge of US politics and I think that things will get even worse in the lead up to the 2012 elections. Still, the choice, ultimately, is ours. Choose wisely—and with civility.