Nov.27

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Dem 51

   

GOP 49

American Politics Has Become Really Gross

American politics has always been rough. On May 22, 1856, Rep. Preston Brooks (D) of South Carolina used a cane to beat abolitionist Sen. Charles Sumner (R) of Massachusetts on the floor of the Senate. Brooks came close to killing Sumner. This attack polarized the country over the issue of slavery even more than it already was, and moved the country closer to civil war.

While politics has always been rough, until recently, it wasn't also gross. Sumner gave a speech attacking a pro-slavery senator from South Carolina, Andrew Butler, saying: "[He] touches nothing which he does not disfigure with error, sometimes of principle, sometimes of fact. He cannot open his mouth, but out there flies a blunder." You have to admit that while Sumner hated Butler, at least he was fairly eloquent in denouncing him. Those days are gone.

Speech and conduct in Congress has gotten much more vulgar these days. For example:

• Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) has called the 5' 0" Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) "a little bitch."
• Boebert was caught on a security camera groping her date at a play in Denver; Greene then called her a "whore."
• Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) didn't like something Greene was doing and said it out loud, so she called him a "pussy."
• Greene recently mocked the 80-year-old Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) as "cognitively diminished."
• Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) called former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) "a jerk," "pathetic," and "a bully."
• Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) challenged a witness to a fight and said: "I'll bite. And I don't care where I'll bite."

All this coarse behavior goes back to a single source, Donald Trump. Attacking your opponent verbally has always been fair game, but as Sumner demonstrated, it has generally been civil. No more. Among other things, Trump has said:

• Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Mark Milley, should be executed for treason.
• Shoplifters should fully expect to be shot.
• Undocumented immigrants are "poisoning the blood of our country."
• Communists, Marxists, fascists and radical left thugs live like vermin within the confines of this country.

Trump also promised to obliterate the deep state and prosecute Joe Biden and a long list of other people who have crossed him. He said: "Either they win or we win." With Trump as a role model, what did you expect? (V)