Political discourse has turned into tirades, much like the roaming cliques on college campuses who scream for “safe spaces”, like the one below. Watch the whole thing to get the sense of the collapse of decorum.
Slate’s Isaac Chotiner, in his rant on Alan Colmes (www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2017/02/23/alan_colmes_was_fox_news_original_liberal_patsy.html), is digital media’s version of the same kind of verbal gang-tackling. Check this out: Chotiner’s hostility to Colmes is rooted in Colmes’s tendency to be affable and “nice”. Quoting Chotiner, “Colmes was the most absurd, useless, and mocked television personality in America for many years, precisely because he was nice …. being a nice guy — and a ‘liberal’ nice guy at that — meant being a buffoon, and a patsy.”
“Nice” was a virtue in the not-too-distant past. Apparently, not anymore. Primal scream has replaced civil discourse. Anyone approaching an issue from a different viewpoint is no longer a person adding to a discussion. He or she is deserving of character assassination. And for those on your side willing to be considerate reserve your worst rhetoric.
Sad, sad, so very sad.
RogerG