BRATTLEBORO — Creating over-simplistic, false historical comparisons doesn't help anyone. While I agree that the GOP presidential candidate is anything but civil, to claim the internet has ushered in a new era of people being rude, is super convenient and propping up a version of the past that is not there.
Was it civil for Representative Duke Cunningham on May 11, 1995 on the floor of the House to call gay and lesbian folks serving as “homos in the military?” Or when in 1996 Hillary Clinton called black men “superpredators”?
You can't forget instances of slurs, incivility, and prejudice because they don't fit your narrative. That's not helpful to anyone moving forward.
If more instances of incivility do exist, it is probably because we are able to document them all and spread them all in this age of the internet instead of them getting lost in private conversations or bogged down on C-Span 2.
Or it could be because the internet has created a place where people can put out their first thoughts unfiltered, and - shockingly, in a society that supports institutional racism, sexism, and transphobia - we see that most people's first responses are of intolerance.
Calling this era of the internet less civil doesn't help anyone, and it harkens to a philosophy of comparing us to a way we never were.
Maybe instead of making a claim that we should “Make America Civil Again,” we should instead use the internet and other resources to hold leaders, especially leaders who say they are representing us, accountable for the language they use or have used, for policy positions they have or don't have and - more importantly - for the events they don't see fit to talk about or use any language to describe.
I'm talking about you, Hillary Clinton. Standing Rock - ahem. Charlotte - hint-hint.