Picture this: It’s 2012. The Hunger Games and The Avengers are breaking the box office. The London Olympics recently captured the attention of millions. You’ve probably heard “Gangnam Style” play at least five times in the last few hours. Seeking an escape that provides intellectual and academic value, you sit down for the presidential debate between Republican Mitt Romney and President Obama. You immediately notice several differences between this and the first 2020 Trump-Biden debate. No, I’m not talking about the crowd that’s closer than 6ft from each other. The most striking difference between these two debates is the opening remarks of each pair of presidential hopefuls. Obama opened with a touching remark about his anniversary:
“I want to thank Governor Romney and the University of Denver for your hospitality. There are a lot of points that I want to make tonight, but the most important one is that 20 years ago I became the luckiest man on earth because Michelle Obama agreed to marry me.”
Good-natured laughter ensues, and eventually it’s Romney’s turn to speak.
“It’s an honor to be here with you, and I appreciate the chance to be with the president. I am pleased to be at the University of Denver, appreciate their welcome and also the presidential commission on these debates. And congratulations to you, Mr. President, on your anniversary. I’m sure this was the most romantic place you could imagine — here with me.”
These candidates staunchly disagreed on many things, but their conversations were classy and polite, made the viewer feel comfortable, and gave the incredibly important process of electing our president the respectful opening it deserved. You may not have agreed with Obama’s policies, but he was undoubtedly a kind and well-spoken person. At the very least, he held his position and treated his opponents with dignity. Politics was more of a gentleman’s (and woman’s) game, and people treated the positions they held and the people they dealt with with grace (for the most part, certainly there are exceptions). Whether you agreed or disagreed with his policies, the president was generally respected wherever he went, and political discussion was much more polite and civil. In essence, in 2012 and years prior, politics were respectful at least on the surface level, if nothing else. Certainly, there were undignified things that went on behind the scenes, but politicians at least gave a professional front. Now politicians act unprofessionally in front of millions, behaving like squabbling children (just look at 2020’s first presidential debate). Alas, 2016 would mark the end of civil, quality, and respectful political debate between presidential candidates, on college campuses, and in America as a whole. But it’s mostly not Trump’s fault: let’s explore why.
Fast forward to now: the first 2020 presidential debate was a laughing-stock, with Trump and Biden insulting each other, speaking over each other, and in my opinion making a mockery of the process. On college campuses and in society in general, it’s become harder and harder to have unique, differing opinions for fear of being “cancelled.” And when anybody voices these opinions, they will be shouted down, insulted, and at times assaulted, such as at UC Berkely a few years ago. Hayden Williams, a conservative activist, was recruiting for a grass-roots conservative organization when he was shoved and then punched in the face for his views. The situation was not helped by the fact that police, the university administration, and the public in general had a muted response to the matter, a response they would not have given “if a conservative beat up a leftist,” according to Donald Trump Jr.
Trump’s election seemingly resulted in a new era of uncivil and unproductive politics. To be sure, he played a role in this: his style is brash, unreserved, and bullish, and he doesn’t hesitate to instigate conflict, such as calling Kim Jong Un “Rocketman” and Mike Bloomberg “Mini Mike.” His style therefore certainly detracted from gentility in politics, and is a sharp bifurcation from the politeness and easy communication of Romney and Obama. I will also cede that this, in turn, has helped increase inter party tension, leading to less productive conversation.
However, while Trump has played a role in lowering the discourse, there is only so much one man can do. No, this tension and lack of civility stems from another source: the general population. More specifically, the group most responsible for these societal and political changes seems to be the radical left.
The biggest change between politics now versus a decade ago is that people used to respect each other. Civility in politics, especially personal, one on one conversations, has plummeted, because people (mostly on the left) will immediately assume you’re wrong and hateful for disagreeing with them. College campuses, and Cornell to a slightly lesser degree, have become hotspots of one-track thinking, where you’re either a leftist or wrong.
On social media and college campuses, conservatives, centrists, and even moderate liberals have to be careful about what they say for the very real fear of being ‘cancelled’ or penalized for statements that are deemed offensive. The bar has dropped so low that what is considered offensive no longer meets a reasonable standard of racism, sexism, bigotry, or even general hatred. I personally find myself checking over anything I post publicly countless times to make sure I’m within the bounds of what is acceptable. The far left’s cancellable standards change every year. For example, in 2008, Obama and Biden were staunchly against gay marriage, a position that would have caused them to be ostracized now. Standards change, however, you can also be retroactively cancelled for saying or doing something that was appropriate in the past, such as our Founding Fathers being cancelled for owning slaves. In no way am I justifying the horrible practice, but it was a different time with different societal standards. Of course, the left does not apply its own standards to themselves, as evidenced by their deafening silence about Biden’s views in 2008.
The radical left has instilled in society at large a lack of respect for others’ political opinions. Common decency seems to have disappeared, and with it productive, civil conversation. It is for these reasons that I believe the radical left, not Trump, is the biggest reason that the political environment today has become so uncivil. Trump can insult everyone he wants to, and rightfully gets flack for it. But if leftists act no better than him, then Trump is not really to blame. If they, just like Trump and Biden at the debate, yell over the rest of the population and don’t have the decency to engage properly, we will never get anything done.
