Lack of civility in U.S. politics seen worsening

LITTLE ROCK — Instantaneous communication and a political process that lends power to polarizing figures have made civility an increasingly apparent need in America, the chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities said in Little Rock on Thursday.

“There is no country in which the public square is more important than it is here today,” Jim Leach told an audience at the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service.

Incivility has always been an issue in America, dating back to the times of violence between national politicians, said Leach, a Republican former U.S. representative from Iowa.

But the need to confront that tone has intensified as technology such as the Internet, smart phones and 24-hour cable news have ensured that the world is watching and reacting to the behavior of Americans, he said.

“The great question is whether this new communication is going to bring the world closer together or create further bifurcation,” Leach said.

That same technology has created a platform for divisive political speech as the media becomes more fragmented and cable channels and news sources cater to specific, ideal-driven viewers to secure audiences and the advertising revenue that comes with them, he said.

The American primary system has also contributed to a lack of compromise in policy, Leach said.

A majority of seats in the U.S. House stay with candidates from the same party term after term, he said. This means the lawmakers that win these seats do so by appealing to a very narrow band that represents the base of that party and do little to depart from that platform for fear of a primary challenge in the next election, Leach said.

“It’s really an extraordinary phenomenon that the center has been eroded from American politics through the primary process,” he said.

“If there is a movement of trying to take another person’s views into consideration, that offends the base of the party.”

Speaking to a crowd that included Dale Bumpers, a former Arkansas governor and U.S. senator, Leach suggested politicians should aspire to raise their ethic to the level of athletes who applaud their opponents when they’ve been defeated and abide by commonly understood rules of sportsmanship and fairness.

Americans can expect their lawmakers to achieve more through compromise when individuals are more connected to the political process, making the expectation known, he said.

Increased voter participation in political primaries would ensure that a greater portion of the population’s interests are represented, Leach said.

He also called for a reexamining of the congressional redistricting process to eliminate situations in which electoral maps are drawn based on securing party territory rather than protecting the interests of the electorate.