Excerpt on The state of political discourse
JIM LEHRER: He was pushing an envelope that was already going there, is what you're saying.
DAVID BROOKS: Yes, I mean, and it's obvious, if you hang around Congress, the conversations you hear are just of that nature.
JIM LEHRER: Do you feel the same way?
MARK SHIELDS: I think it's a coarsening of our political language, our political life. I think it's a coarsening of our national life. I mean, I think we see things on television and public entertainment that we didn't see a generation ago.
But I think it is true, and it's reached the point where if you and I -- you're my political adversary. You're not simply wrong; you have to be evil. You know, you don't have any moral standing. I mean, that -- and that's -- rather than prove you wrong or encourage you to come to my side, my approach is to demonize you and destroy you. And I really think that it's a tragic -- a tragic reality.
JIM LEHRER: That's new? You think that's a new problem?
MARK SHIELDS: I think it has developed, and I think it has not stopped. I mean, I was hoping that the president -- it was part of Barack Obama's theme. And I don't think he can be accused of that at all, but it was part of his campaign theme. And it did touch people. People did respond to it.
DAVID BROOKS: I would just say, it's cyclical. I mean, we have periods of high polarization in American history. I mean, Alexander Hamilton was shot by a political opponent. That's reasonably polarizing. Abraham Lincoln, a polarizing period. Then we have had a high polarizing period.
I personally think we've now sort of bifurcated, where a lot of the country has lost some of the polarizing zeal, but there are minorities on each side who are watching Fox or MSNBC who are still in that high polarizing mode, and there are incentives for them to stay there.
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