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Mitch Albom: Public discourse by lawmakers is now a notch above food fight (www.freep.com)

submitted 6 months ago by raoulraoul@midwest.social to c/detroit@midwest.social

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Attention: non-metroDetroit™-specific content. I'll still respect you in the morning.

Something's been bugging me for a while now regarding the quality of discourse in this country, especially from the people in positions who have been educated in this nation's higher institutions of learning, people who have studied how to string words together in a cohesive manner to present ideas both simple and complex, people who are at least familiar with the concept of rational debate, people who may even be considered role models but minimally are usually held to a higher standard.

Y'know…people who should know better.

Apparently I'm not alone in this as The Freep's Mitch Albom gives his take on the nosedive of intellectual exchange in politics and elsewhere…

During an evening hearing last week, U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican, got into a testy exchange with U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, a Democrat.

GREENE: “I don't think you know what you are here for. ... I think your fake eyelashes are messing up what you're reading."

CROCKETT: "I'm just curious, just to better understand your ruling, if someone on this committee then starts talking about somebody's bleach-blonde, bad-built, butch body, that would not be engaging in personalities, correct?" […] All that was missing was the food fight.

It’s all terrible. It’s all dishonorable. And it’s our Congress. Our lawmakers. The people who determine the fate of the country. […] And we are making a mistake if we think, optimistically, that this will somehow get better.

[…]what has changed in recent years is that the low-brow stuff, instead of behind the curtain, is now proudly in front of it. Surely Donald Trump led the way in this revolution. From his early campaigning days in 2016 calling Hillary Clinton a “monster” and Elizabeth Warren “Pocahontas,” to more recent insults of Adam Schiff (a “pencil neck” with a “fat, ugly face”) and President Joe Biden (“He can’t put two sentences together” and “Everything Joe Biden touches turns to s---"), Trump is a single-handed, monster-truck force for lowering public debate to schoolyard trash talk.

Everyone is sinking into the same mud. And we’re kidding ourselves if we think our side is righteous, or the other side started it, or coarse language is worse than clever insults. […] Needing a dictionary doesn’t wash away ugly.

The emphasized passages are where I and Albom diverge: "coarse" is worse than "clever" because at minimum "clever" shows you're not "working without tools." And these are the last people that should be working without tools.

Doncha think?

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[–] Landsharkgun@midwest.social 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Enh. Just sounds like pearl clutching to me. A lot of lawmakers probably need to be cussed out more. If you can't take an insult you have no business being in politics, which is just a formalized method for handling conflict.

MTG made it personal because she's an asshole, and Jaime clapped back to demonstrate that the committee was being biased in not censuring MTG. This happened because of willful disregard of the rules that are in place to prevent this sort of thing, and Jaime handled perfectly: she escalated instead of bowing to an unfair ruling.

[–] raoulraoul@midwest.social 0 points 6 months ago

If you can’t take an insult you have no business being in politics, which is just a formalized method for handling conflict.

…I think we can all agree on this.

MTG made it personal because she’s an asshole

…and here's where you throw your whole argument out the window. Pushback (and language) of this nature has no place in civil discourse, much less justification of such. We, and they, are not friends at the bar. We, and they, are in a public arena where, like it or not, we are held to certain social customs and rules. Rep Greene was clearly out of line with such a playground ad hominem attack on Rep Crockett. But instead of "taking the high road" or having Greene officially reprimanded for her childish behaviour most unbecoming of a public official—at least Rep Ocasio-Cortez correctly addressed the attack initially—both Reps Cortez and Crockett returned the volley with Ms Crockett improvising that scene from Do The Right Thing. Would you applaud that kind of escalation from your children?

"Pearl clutching," my ass.