Civil discourse on the line

This Midterms will decide more than whether the American Republic will come back. It will likely decide whether civil discourse will stay current in the United States. One side favors it; the other side deprecates and has already abandoned it. We see this, not only in social media but also on the campaign trail. This will only accelerate the Great Sortation of the American people into two geographically distinct regions. If that continues, the contest of political ideas will only get more bitter.

How Democratic candidates break civil discourse

On Monday, August 22, one day before Primary Day in New York, Florida, and Oklahoma, Acting Governor Kathy Hochul (D-N.Y.) fired the first salvo. New York’s 19^th Congressional district held a special election, after Rep. Antonio Delgado (D-N.Y.) resigned to become Lieutenant Governor. Democrat Paul Ryan and Republican Andrew Molinaro faced off in that election. So at a campaign rally for Ryan, Kathy Hochul said this:

My friends, we are fighting for democracy. We’re fighting to bring government back to the people and out of the hands of dictators. And we’re here to say that the era of Trump and [Rep. Lee] Zeldin [her campaign opponent] and Molinaro …

Now at this point, one would expect her to continue that sentence with the words “is over.” Instead,in the middle of that sentence,she broke off and went on a rant:

Just jump on[to] a bus and head down to Florida where you belong. OK? Get out of town! Get out of town, because you don’t represent our values. You are not New Yorkers; you are not New Yorkers. Because we come from a long line of people who fought for women’s rights that happened here first.

Did Kathy Hochul make a Freudian slip?

And “environmental justice,” and “labor rights,” and the “rights” of those who pursue alternative lifestyles. That last, one can expect. But when she abruptly broke off one sentence and began another, many influencers construed her presentation this way:

All you who would vote for Trump, or Zeldin, or Molinaro, just jump onto a bus and head down to Florida where you belong!

Or maybe, “just jump into a lake,” like Laurence Harvey as Raymond Shaw in The Manchurian Candidate (1962)!

So did Acting Governor Hochul speak clumsily and make her speech sound harsher than she intended? Yes – but why? Perhaps, in the middle of her sentence, she decided to express her true feelings. And those true feelings are that she feels nothing in common with anyone who votes, or would vote, against her. And even if she did not intend to tell millions of voters (and their families) to leave New York, she did say that her opponents are not New Yorkers. Well, if they’re not New Yorkers, then they who would vote for them are not New Yorkers, either.

For his part, Rep. Zeldin declared, “I’m not going anywhere!”

We’ve heard this breach of civil discourse before

Reporter Jon Campbell decided to juxtapose her remarks with remarks then-Governor Andrew Cuomo (D-N.Y.) made a year ago:

Who are they? Are these the extreme conservatives, who are right to life, pro-assault weapon, anti-[alternative lifestyle]? Is that who they are? Because if that is who they are, and if they are the extreme conservatives, they have no place in the State of New York. Because that is not who New Yorkers are.

These are not examples of civil discourse. Part of civil discourse is open and polite debate about different political ideas, and candidates for public office. Alexis de Tocqueville talked about that in Democracy in America.To order people out of your jurisdiction for running – and maybe for voting – against you, is to break not only civil discourse but the very value these people claim most to support: democratic elections.

These are also some of the bitterest substitutes for civil discourse we’ve yet seen from political candidates. They’re also counterintuitive. At least in California, leftist political leaders recognize that, when people flee their State, they take their tax dollars with them. So they’ve put up billboards in Los Angeles and San Francisco, begging people not to leave. (Or at least not to move to Texas, and they cite the Uvalde Incident as reason to stay.)

But in New York, one Governor openly tells patriotic Americans to leave his State. Then his successor probably let slip her wish such people would leave, and definitely told opposing candidates to leave.

Charlie Crist doesn’t help

Paul Ryan won that special election, which won’t change anything, because he replaces another Democrat. Did he win because too many Republican voters took Andrew Cuomo’s advice? We might never know.

But in Florida, former Gov. Charlie Crist, now a Democrat, said something almost as bad after winning his primary. He actually defined a class of voters whose votes he would not seek.

Those who support the governor should stay with him and vote for him. And I don’t want your vote. If you have that hate in your heart, keep it there.

No politician ever says, or implies, that some people shouldn’t vote for them. Or no one did before today. Again, part of civil discourse is persuading others to exchange your point of view for that of your opponent. It is no part of civil discourse to “write people off,” as Charlie Crist did. And apparently as President Biden did, when he actually called those who support President Trump “semi-fascists.” So who are the real extremists, as one other influencer asks?

When elected officials (like Acting Gov. Hochul) or candidates (like Crist) say things like that, they admit that this upcoming Midterms will be a contest for the heart and soul of the country. But they also behave like immature children who definitely did not get a good education in civil discourse. Adults do not tell one another,

I don’t want to play in your yard; I don’t like you anymore.

Civil discourse loses down-ticket

But that’s what we’re seeing from Democrats today. In fact we hear this from more than Governors and those running against them. Jena Griswold, Secretary of State in Colorado, actually said that Midterms will decide whether we have “democracy” in America anymore. (Never mind that democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what’s for dinner.)Republicans are actively running Secretary of State candidates for the first time. Moreover, several county election officials have complained that Jena Griswold runs her office in a partisan manner. And now, going into Midterms and facing re-election herself, she speaks of “trying to save democracy.”

What we can expect from the extreme Republicans running across this country is to undermine free and fair elections for the American people, strip Americans of the right to vote, refuse to address security breaches and, unfortunately, be more beholden to Mar-a-Lago than the American people.

She speaks of Republican Secretary of State candidates, if elected, “weaponizing their posts,” thus following Saul Alinsky’s rule: always accuse your opponent of doing what you do.

Sleepy races wake up

This last also reveals a pattern of Republicans finally – in a long-overdue change – paying attention to “sleepy races.” Until recently, no one thought a State Secretary of State had duties of a policymaking character. They pushed paper, counted the votes, and that was the extent of their duties. So George Soros started his Secretary of State Project to put in place Secretaries of State who would loosen the security requirements for elections. Voting by mail, and unattended drop boxes, are part of that. And because mail-in ballots skew left, suddenly the Secretary of State does have duties of a confidential, policy-determining, policy-making, and policy-advocating character. Republicans know this. Now Democrats know that they know, and it scares them.

Ron DeSantis sounds Reveille in school elections

School elections have also come out of the “sleepy” category. Teachers’ unions discovered that they can best affect school policies by campaigning for sympathetic Board of Education candidates. They also sought more policy changes than teacher salary raises. The National Education Association openly pushes the Eight Precepts of Woke, and advocating other left-wing policies in class. And those same unions planned last year to support their favorite Board of Education members, with “dark money” if necessary.

But this year, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) pushed back. He knew that sympathetic Boards of Education can stop “woke” and grooming better than State officials or even courts. So he recruited, and campaigned actively for, thirty conservatives to run for their local school boards.

Twenty-one of his candidates won outright; four more headed into runoffs that will coincide with Midterms. (See here and here.) Leaders of the 1776 Project PAC, who provided detailed leadership, plan to repeat this campaign in other States.

These are the best reforms we’ve seen, and the school elections are more important still. Secretaries of State count the votes, and as Josef Stalin said, that’s what matters in any election. Boards of Education are responsible for how the next generation will vote – and conduct civil discourse.

If one side abandons civil discourse, where does that lead?

So we see Republicans welcoming people into their States, and Democrats pushing people out of theirs. Their policies were bad enough; now we hear them, at best, saying, “Pay our exorbitant taxes, or leave.” Or else they are ordering people to leave if they don’t want to vote for them! And people are leaving. A Great Sortation has been taking place since late last year, especially since leftists have been abandoning civil discourse in States they control. U-Haul still charges three times as much to move out of California as to move in. Recall also that in March The Los Angeles Times scornfully bade conservatives good riddance.

If that continues, and unless civil discourse improves, political contests will only get more bitter. In the best case, that state of affairs won’t last, because leftist policies are not sustainable. Not only do they not work economically, but they discourage the very making of a next generation. So “demographic winter” might eventually “flip” those States, as Stephen Turley, Ph.D., sometimes predicts.

Worst case: a permanent split

The worst case involves secession. An Article Five Convention of States could report out an “Aztlán Charter” to include all the Blue States, and most of Canada. (Alberta and Saskatchewan might join the “Old United States.”) Would “New Aztlán” content itself with expelling “non-woke” people from its territory? Actually, they might have to, because makers of the “arms” that the Constitution recognizes the “right of the people to keep and bear” might move out of that polity and into the Old United States. (Two already have: Remington Arms moved to Georgia, and Smith and Wesson to Texas.) What will the “woke country” leadership say then? “We’re going to huff and puff and blow your house down”? They might indeed be that childish – and continue policies that will eventually make their territory ungovernable.

The history of the United States as presently constituted, doesn’t have to end this way. A return to civil discourse can save it. But the Kathy Hochuls and Charlie Crists and Jena Griswolds aren’t helping.