For some older readers

[veronica_rich]

At the age of 38, I've only witnessed a certain amount of things in history, of course. So I'm curious about something, from people my age or older, who can speak best to this: Do you think the political rhetoric/discussion/debate in the U.S. today is more ... incindiery, or charged, uncivilized (use your own word to basically mean "less diplomatic/calm") than it has been for decades?

I'm just curious, not only in the wake of Arizona last weekend, but as something I've wondered for the past several years. Some of the remarks and rhetoric and arguments and words I hear now as a matter of course are the kinds of things that back in the 1980s, I only truly remember from shows like "D.C. Follies" or "Spitting Image" - parodies of politics, exaggerated for comedy.

Comments

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

Maybe it's that the rhetoric now is worse, whereas then there was more action?

[gryphons-lair.livejournal.com]

No, I think the action is roughly at the same level. Peaceniks protesting the war by chanting "Hell no, we won't go!" & occupying the offices of assorted college presidents vs Teapartiers shouting down their elected representatives and anybody who disagrees with the TPers at said representatives' public meetings.

But the level of rhetoric is (was?) definitely worse now. Back then nobody was claiming, oh, that the president was having 18 yr old men kidnapped off the streets for the express purpose of shipping them to Vietnam. But the TPers didn't hesitate to accuse Obama et al of proposing "Death Panels" to supposedly "decide if (Sarah Palin's son) Trig should live".