Whoever wins these upcoming elections, the malignant responses to the recent attack on Paul Pelosi show that we all have reason to mourn the near total loss of decency in civic life. A politically motivated, skull-fracturing hammer attack on an 82-year-old man is not funny.
But the public air is so thick with poison that some politicians claimed to find humor in the assault on the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. And they have remained twisted and ugly even after an FBI affidavit disclosed that the attacker was planning to hold the 82-year-old speaker hostage and “break her kneecaps” if she did not give him the answers he wanted.
The terms depraved, morally bankrupt and degenerate are not strong enough to describe those who are using this tragic event to amuse their supporters and manipulate political rallies, playing on the worst instincts of those easily charged crowds.
You have to wonder how these people were raised. Would their mothers be proud of their words and actions? Would these politicians have the same sick reaction if their own mothers or fathers or grandparents or neighbors were attacked like this? And what about those who are in leadership positions who remain silent and fail to condemn this behavior?
How far our civic discourse has sunk is apparent to anyone who has spent a couple of hours watching television during this election season. Candidates and their political committees often can keep their own hands clean, because they know that the mysterious super PACs will do dirty work for them by running sensational and slimy name-calling attack ads.
If you listen to those ads — if you have not grown numb to them and shut them out — it would be fair to conclude that no one is worthy of our vote for any public office. And you can add to that the rampant lies of the merciless social media mobocracy.
It is not a surprise that many well-intentioned and talented people simply will not run for public office in this climate. We should remember that running for office, putting yourself publicly on the line, is noble from the lowest job in town to the highest job in the nation.
These candidacies are crucial to the survival of our democracy. But we must be honest and recognize that, lately, the personal and family cost of running for office — offering to serve your government, to help your neighbors, to build better communities — has become far, far too high.
Hopefully, all of this — the incivility and threats of violence and violent actions — is like the process by which a pig passes through a python. With good luck, it will work its way to a natural end before the nation splits in half.
In the meantime, we have a chance to cast our votes Tuesday based upon the traditional qualities of character and experience and ideas, as best as we can determine those things.
In this election cycle, every major race presents two clear choices. There are progressives and conservatives, those who know government well and newcomers, those who would unite us and those who would divide us. And we can reject those candidates who encourage political violence or do not condemn it.
