Eliyahu Gasson | editor-in-chief

We all understand that American politics are polarized, and much has been done to try to counter that. Frankly, I’m tired of the topic. It feels like someone has been force-feeding me the sweetest and fattiest I’ve ever had. I’m full!

The “civil discourse” discourse has become tired because we keep trying to have “civil” discourse with the least honest, incendiary and crude political characters alive.

At some point, we need to be honest and upfront about the fact that, in order to have a civilized conversation, we need to exclude the most vile interlocutors, lest they poison our stew. The last 10 years has seen sympathisers of the radical right push their way into the mainstream of American politics. The policies enacted as a result have done serious damage to American communities, workers and the economy at large.

We are suffering the consequences of our lack of care in vetting who we allow into the national conversation. We have let people enter who have shaky foundations in reality.

Someone who comes into a conversation to fight over baseless beliefs without at least a simple understanding of basic facts doesn’t deserve the time to do so. If they’re dishonestly arguing on behalf of something they don’t really believe, they should be thrown out. If they’re flat-out delusional, they should be in a home or a hospital.

Anyone who would defend the president’s statements on Somalis, Hispanics, Latinos or transgender people, to name a few, needs to be pelted by tomatoes until they leave the public square. Anyone who blindly supports the fervent and wanton slashing of education subsidization or food stamps needs to be laughed out of the room. Anyone who would defend raiding apartment buildings and separating children from their parents should be socially marked as anti-human and dismissed for it.

We can debate how we handle our immigration system or how much money we need to put toward welfare programs to keep them effective without bankrupting the country, but the debate needs to be left for people who actually understand (or are willing to learn about) the nuances of the topics they’re discussing and have some level of respect for humanity.

None of this is to say the left lacks their own radicals, but at least those people (the Marxist-Leninists, Trotskyists etc.) remain a mostly online phenomenon. Perhaps one day the Democratic Party will be overrun by people nostalgic for the Soviet Union, but that would require that they get better at organizing and stop hurling insults at each other for not believing in the same interpretation of “Das Kapital.”

American democracy depends on civil discourse, but we’ll never get it if we keep giving podiums to goons. Civility depends on trust and respect. You cannot trust a rabid animal to refrain from tearing your flesh apart.

Eliyahu Gasson can be reached at gassone@duq.edu