If you’re tired of political attack ads interrupting your YouTube videos, you are not alone.
Some might wonder why we can’t all just get along, or if the political divide has always been so analogous to a highly contentious sports rivalry. For U.S. and Civil War-era expert Michael Green, the answer is tucked inside the oft-quoted phrase: History repeats itself. And in the case of highly charged political discourse, he says, the journey begins way back in the days of Alexander Hamilton, through the Reagan era, and into the present.
So, how does today’s political polarization differ from that of the 1800s? What roles do the media and the country’s two-party system play? What about the increasingly crass nature of political commentary? And how has the internet and other technology shaken things up?
Up ahead, Green, professor and chair of the UNLV department of history, carefully charts the choppy waters of American politics (like Washington across the Delaware). Let’s grab an oar and paddle on.
How would you summarize the modern state of civil discourse?
Let’s face it — uncivil. But it’s also historical.
You can go back to the first real presidential election in 1800, where Thomas Jefferson’s campaign was accusing John Adams of being a monarchist. And Adams’ people were suggesting that Jefferson might be having a relationship with an enslaved woman —which it turned out he was. But openly discussing that kind of thing in that era was surprising.
In 1828, John Quincy Adams was the incumbent running against Andrew Jackson. Adams’ camp issued what were called the “Coffin Handbills,” which were coffins with the names of people Jackson had killed in duels. For their part, Jackson’s people accused Adams of being a pimp.
Attacks are part of political discourse throughout our history.
What makes it different today?
The internet, in particular, but also 24/7 cable news.
Abraham Lincoln never went back to his residence in the White House and checked out what MSNBC or Fox were saying about him, or checked what was being posted online.
There have always been nasty things said about candidates or the people in office. But today, there are more places and spaces to find the nasty stuff, and today’s editing standards differ from in the past.
As outlets to voice opinions become more plentiful, how will that continue to change the discourse?
I think the can of worms is already open.
I wrote a book on Lincoln and the 1860 election — and it addressed media news of that era. If you were a Lincoln supporter, you read the Republican paper that said his main opponent, Democrat Stephen Douglas, was evil. And if you were a Douglas supporter, you were reading the pro-Douglas papers saying Lincoln was going to force you to marry a formerly enslaved person.
All ridiculous, of course, but there are plenty of examples of nastiness throughout America’s past. The founding fathers didn’t envision broadcast media or the internet, and it’s having a big effect on us.
But while much of what we’re seeing in the age of the internet is new, we’ve seen similar responses to slightly older media. For example, during the Cold War, the Richard Nixon administration would attack the media and claim it was biased.
What about other mediums — how has the evolution of technology changed elections?
Franklin Roosevelt was the president who figured out radio when it started becoming big in the 1920s. As president in the 1930s, he did “fireside chats.” Aides would say to him, “You’re spending an awful lot of time on that,” and Roosevelt would say it’s the most important part of his week. And it really built a lot of support for him. That didn’t stop his opponents, including from within the Democratic party, from trashing him.
When you get to television, John Kennedy and, later, Ronald Reagan are the masters. There was plenty of nasty stuff said about them. But even then, did it seem to reach the height or depth that we have today? Not in Reagan’s case, perhaps, but still plenty of unpleasant commentary.
If you think back to something as recent as 2000 – Al Gore and George W. Bush — there was a lot of animosity. We had something called the Brooks Brothers riot, where Republicans tried to intimidate vote counters.
What we usually find is that once the election is settled, we talk about needing to get behind whoever has won. There has been less of that in the last couple of decades.
Any noteworthy elections that were generally tame?
Some elections are quieter than others, there’s less action. That often has had to do with the likelihood of one dominant winner. In 1904, Theodore Roosevelt was running for a full term. He went up against a judge from New York who was going to get buried. Nobody really made much noise.
Somewhat similarly: George Washington was unanimously re-elected in 1792. And James Monroe was re-elected with all but one electorate in 1820. There were really no political parties at the time, though there was still plenty of churn going on. It’s just nobody else really ran.
There have been elections that really focused on the issues. In 1912, Woodrow Wilson ran for the Democrats. The Republican party split between the former president Theodore Roosevelt and the incumbent president William Howard Taft. A socialist named Eugene Debs got a significant number of votes – about a million, which was a lot in that era.
Were they unpleasant to, or about each other? Yes. But they were also discussing substantive issues with substantive differences. We have less discussion of the issues now, but one of the reasons is because it’s much easier for a candidate to say, “Go to my website.”
What’s the likelihood of party lines ever changing or crossing?
The founding fathers did not envision political parties. In fact, they opposed them.
They anticipated that the country would have factions. You might believe in a certain right, and there would be a group of people who would coalesce around it. But there would be another group you would oppose supporting different rights.
We have seen a lot more polarization in recent years, but the Democrats and Republicans have been the major parties for more than 160 years. The platforms of the two parties have switched with time. We have grown accustomed to the idea that they have to be one or the other.
Consider the fact that there are more people who are not members of those two parties in Nevada than are members of them — which tells us something, perhaps, about the polarization.
If you go back to Abraham Lincoln, when he was elected president, there were four major candidates on the ballot. The Democratic party had split between the northern and southern Democrats. The former Whig party didn’t want to go with the Republicans or the Democrats, and formed the Constitutional Union party.
There is nothing today stopping Democrats who feel the party is too liberal, or Republicans who feel the party is too conservative, from saying, “Let’s try to form a big moderate party.” But we are, I think, wedded to the idea that this is the way it is. And it does not have to be.
What causes the changes in decorum or polarization throughout the years?
There’s been an ebb and flow, but it’s almost always been a fiery ebb and flow. More fire at certain times, less at others, but always some fire. Blame the political parties if you want, but that means we’re blaming ourselves because we go along with them.
It demands more of us to know the issues, the people, and what’s going on. The factions that James Madison expected would have felt strongly about the issue that created the faction. We aren’t as far from that era as we think.
If you’re a fan of Broadway musicals, Hamilton is a reminder that we are closer to the founding fathers than we might like to be. Alexander Hamilton viewed Thomas Jefferson as a threat to the country.
That sounds a lot like how Democrats and Republicans talk about themselves today. Maybe we can take some comfort that we’re more like Jefferson and Hamilton. Or maybe we should be thinking about how even Jefferson and Hamilton could be wrong.
