The United States has historically been a nation that has suffered incivility and violence in its political institutions. Any cursory examination of our past will show that vitriol flung by opponents, sometimes escalating into physical confrontation, seems to be endemic to our society.
In 1786 and 1787 Shays’ Rebellion, in western Massachusetts, predated the creation of the Constitution. Only short years after the inception of our Republic under the Constitution, in 1794, farmers in Western Pennsylvania erupted in what has been called the Whiskey Rebellion, put down by troops under the direct command of then President George Washington.
A bitter Presidential election saw charges and countercharges hurled by John Adams and Thomas Jefferson and their supporters in the 1800 election. Adams was vilified for his patrician ways and Jefferson was accused of sexual relations with “dusky Sally,” one of his female slaves. Not long after that, Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton, political foes from New York, engaged in a duel that left Hamilton dead.
After a euphemistically dubbed period called the “Era of Good Feelings,” the political rhetoric heated up after a contentious 1824 election, which saw the leader in both the popular vote and electoral vote, Andrew Jackson, having only a plurality, being defeated by the second place finisher, John Quincy Adams, according to the rules set down in the Constitution. That set up one of the dirtiest campaigns in American history, 1828, where charges included calling Jackson a bigamist and his wife, Rachel, an adulterer. Adams was charged with, of all things, of corrupting the nation by placing a billiards table in the basement of the White House, and acting as a pimp for Russians while ambassador in Moscow.
When Jackson won, he oversaw the infamous “Trail of Tears”, got into a squabble with South Carolina over nullification and even threatened to call out the army to enforce federal law in that state.
Slavery was the cause of violence in Congress. Representative Preston Brooks from South Carolina, reacting to an alleged insult made by Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts toward Brooks’ second cousin, South Carolina Senator Andrew Butler, took a cane to the Senate chamber and beat Sumner over the head and left him unconscious. In that same era, the radical abolitionist, John Brown, participated in the bloodshed in “Bleeding Kansas” and attacked Harper’s Ferry in Virginia.
Our Civil War showed how far political and social differences would cause people to go to advance their agendas, leaving over 620,000 Americans dead. Abraham Lincoln would fall victim to an assassin, followed twenty years later by President James Garfield’s own shooting death. Labor strife caused many casualties, and in 1901, another President, William McKinley, was killed by an unhappy citizen.
Disturbing film showed the Army dispersing the Bonus Army in Washington, D. C., in 1932. After World War 2, the Civil Rights movement saw repeated violence in both southern and northern venues. President Dwight Eisenhower had to call out the military to integrate Little Rock, Arkansas’ Central High School in 1957. “Bull” Conner earned his niche in the American Hall of Shame when he unleashed dogs and high-powered water hoses onto protesters in Birmingham, Alabama.
This era also saw assassinations of President John Kennedy, Malcom X, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Bobby Kennedy. Riots erupted in Detroit, Los Angeles and other major cities, and Chicago hosted the now infamous Democrat National Convention in 1968, replete with demonstrators clashing with police and national guard units in the streets.
An attempt on President Ronald Reagan’s life failed in 1991. Riots in Los Angeles occurred in the 1990s. Political rhetoric has become less civil, as people on different sides try to demonize their opponents. Especially since the Watergate scandal in 1972-1974 the ability to “work across the aisle” with others has become almost nonexistent. The disputed election of 2000 ushered in a renewed era of bitterness in politics. George W. Bush and Barack Obama seemed to polarize the electorate more.
And then came the contentious election of 2016. Republicans set the stage with vicious infighting amongst the 17 contenders, which left only the street fighter, Donald Trump, standing at the end. That was followed by a general election that saw charges, countercharges, name calling, underhanded tactics — you name it, it was seen. When Trump won, the hatred toward him and his fellow Republicans reached unheard of levels, with attempts to keep him from assuming office. And afterwards, a resistance movement sought to remove him from office.
There have been so many instances of verbal and physical violence in our history that it would take several blogs to scratch the surface. (Note the Indian wars, the “Zoot suit” riots in Los Angeles in the 1940s didn’t make the cut here!)
But one of a President’s powers have ratcheted up heat — the power to appoint Justices to the Supreme Court. His first nominee, Neil Gorsuch, brought about demonstrations and condemnations from the Democrats and leftists, but he was duly confirmed by the Senate. Now, his second nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, brought out the hatred and strident obstruction from a number of those determined to “use everything” to stop his confirmation. Kavanaugh’s initial hearings before the Senate Judicial Committee saw his character attacked, even to having one of the Senators calling him “evil”.
When that ended, an orchestrated campaign of character assassination ensued with uncorroborated accusations of sexual assault, which supposedly occurred when Kavanaugh was 17 years old, 36 years ago. To hear his detractors, the poor man is a cross between Attila the Hun and Bluebeard. As of this writing, his confirmation is still in doubt, with a slightly more than 50-50 chance of being successful.
In recent months, the political divide has taken a darker turn. Last year, a Republican Congressman, Steve Scalese, was shot and seriously wounded by a left-wing political supporter of former Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. Members of the administration have been harassed while eating in restaurants, at home and just doing things normal people do. Ted Cruz, Senator from Texas, was forced to leave a D. C. eatery just last week by hecklers. California Congresswoman, Maxine Waters, has urged her fellow Democrats to continue such actions.
Knowing the past, its virulent speech and violent action leads me to speculate about where this is headed. My record for predictions is pretty pathetic; early in the evening of November 8, 2016, I was convinced that Hillary Clinton would be President today. Didn’t happen!
But if “the past is prologue”, as Antonio claimed in Shakespeare’s The Tempest, I fear for the next few months and years. Will the overheated pronouncements, the hatred spewed indiscriminately toward political opponents, the inability to cool down the rhetoric become something more physical? Are proponents on both sides going to become willing to take up literal cudgels against their enemies, rather than spoken ones?
It seems as if there is a very thin veneer of civilization that keeps our society functioning. I have been observing, studying and teaching about American history and politics since the 1964 election. Never have I seen any time when vitriol, violence and hatred are so evident. Will the next step be people being injured, perhaps even killed? Are there not enough people of good will on both sides of the political aisle to rise up and demand an end to this madness? If those opposed think nothing today of destroying a good man’s reputation, his family, his career (see Kavanaugh), what will they not hesitate to do tomorrow?