In the wake of the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump on July 13, there was a wave of calls for Americans to turn down the temperature in the national debate. Everything I know about public opinion and the American people tells me that this is what most Americans wanted in response to a frightening and horrific event that could have sent the nation tumbling into chaos.
But no matter what happens in the next 15 weeks until the presidential election, and no matter who the Democratic Party ultimately puts forward as Trump’s opponent, I’m fairly certain that they are not going to get what they want.
It’s not just that the proposed ceasefire between the Republicans and the Democrats barely lasted 24 hours, as even President Joe Biden couldn’t stick to the high road in an address to the nation a day later that was supposedly about lowering the temperature. The GOP largely responded in kind at their national convention.
That included Trump’s acceptance speech, which began with a riveting and uncharacteristically spiritual account of his brush with death, but then reverted to the usual lengthy recitation of boasts and attacks. Many in the party’s respective media cheering sections did the same, often doubling down on the worst assaults on their opponents.
After several years in which incivility had not just become normative, but regarded as a virtue among the chattering classes, expecting professional politicians, talking heads and pundits to stop demonizing the other side was probably too much to ask.
It will only get worse
But the problem goes much deeper than that. This is why Americans are likely in for a rough ride until November, and for even more divisive and inflammatory discourse, if not a heavy dose of political violence, regardless of who wins.
The same is true for Israelis who had hoped that the terrible events of Oct. 7 would put an end to the unprecedented political warfare that had looked to tear the country apart in the 11 months since Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition won the Nov. 2022 Knesset elections. Within a few months–and despite Israeli soldiers fighting and dying in the struggle to defeat the Hamas terrorists—the demonization of the government returned in force, as the fate of the more than 100 hostages still held in Gaza and the question of whether to accept a ceasefire that would let the murderers, rapists and kidnappers who started the war survive, became politicized.
Why are our societies unable to transcend their differences, even after crises that should cause everyone to understand just how destructive toxic political rhetoric can be?
The answer is complex, but it starts with the bifurcation of the press and the way social media dominates our lives. It comes down to the way this has reinforced a growing belief—at least among those who are most vocal about politics—that their opponents are not well-meaning neighbors and compatriots who are simply mistaken, but evil people who intend to do harm.
Having convinced themselves of this far-reaching conclusion, not even, in Abraham Lincoln’s memorable phrase, “the better angels of our nature,” which might incline people to step back from the abyss of polarization, can persuade us otherwise.
Politics has always been a contact sport, and one can argue that Israeli elections have always been more ideological as its proportional system of voting has benefited splinter parties that are either tribal in nature or represent narrow segments of belief. But such stark divisions were not normative in American politics, if only because the two-party system rewarded compromise and both Democrats and Republicans used to be big tents composed of disparate regional and ideological factions.
To some extent, that created a politics in which the politicians were more interested in doing deals to enhance their power than in representing the views of their voters. But it did help keep things a lot more civil.
A splintering of the media
That’s gone today if for no other reason than the fact that the splintering of the media has created a culture in which the most strident beliefs prevail over those that advocate for a gentler approach to differences.
More to the point, that has created a situation in which those with different beliefs and party loyalties read, listen and watch partisan press outlets and thus no longer share a consensus about the basic facts of virtually any issue. This divisiveness has been exacerbated by the way social media can isolate people from any point of view that contradicts their pre-existing prejudices and opinions.
Even those least inclined to think ill of opponents tend to live in opinion silos where they become unfamiliar with the other side’s arguments. This exists on both ends of the spectrum, but it is particularly true on the left, because most of the media in the United States and Israel is dominated by left-wing journalists.
Conservatives may distrust and dislike outlets that don’t tell them what they want to hear, but they are also far more likely to “speak liberal” if only because left-wing outlets are harder to avoid and tend to outnumber those on the right. By contrast, most liberals find conservative thought utterly incomprehensible because they rarely encounter such views except as they are caricatured by their side.
This is often expressed in the greater willingness to accept conspiracy theories by people on both sides. If you already believe that your ideological foes are ill-intentioned and unscrupulous, it isn’t hard to be convinced that dark forces are the only explanation for events you can’t explain or don’t like.
Thus, many if not most people on the political left were easily persuaded by the Russia-collusion hoax that alleged that Trump’s 2016 election win was the result of Moscow’s intervention on behalf of a candidate who was essentially their agent. It was a tall tale and wholly untrue, but if you think Trump—and his supporters are “deplorables”—then it’s not much of a stretch.
Trump’s supporters felt the same way about the 2020 election. While there was much unfairness about the way the media and the Silicon Valley oligarchs who control the virtual public square titled the playing field in favor of Biden, that’s not the same thing as believing the election was stolen.
Conspiracy theories
That same spirit of cynical disbelief in any event that might undermine the side you support is still very much present, if not stronger than ever. The fact that a poll taken in the immediate aftermath of the attempted murder of Trump showed that fully one in three Democrats said they were prepared to believe that the shooting was staged by Republicans ought to give us all pause.
How can anyone believe that a crime perpetrated in front of thousands of people and filmed live on television, which nearly resulted in Trump’s death, wasn’t real or was in some ways a “false flag” operation?
The answer is simple. Very few people trust the media or what anyone who isn’t on their side says. But if you believe that Trump and Republicans are, as the liberal media and Democrats keep telling us, authoritarians, if not the second coming of the Nazis, then any occurrence that might put them in a sympathetic light is automatically assumed to be a “Reichstag fire” event. In this manner, the same people who mock the way some on the far-right swallowed QAnon conspiracy theories think there is nothing wrong with buying into their own brand of conspiratorial lunacy.
That we were on the road to non-stop divisiveness was plain four years ago, when it was obvious that any expectation that the outcome of the 2020 election would return us to normalcy was an illusion. The same could be said about the situation in Israel, when some hoped that the decisive results of the Nov. 2022 election, after four consecutive votes and stalemates over a two-year period would calm things down. To the contrary, both of the above only enraged the losers and instilled equally angry reactions from the winners.
Indeed, this rigid belief in the horribleness of political opponents makes it hard for people to respond to tragedies with the proper restraint. It was shocking that so many Americans reacted to the attack on Trump with unrestrained hatred, going as far as to express chagrin about the shooter missing his target.
But such despicable sentiments are actually easier to understand than the comments on the part of politicians and pundits who expressed relief that Trump survived the attempted assassination, yet then doubled down on the accusation that he was another Hitler who, with the help of his voters, wished to destroy democracy. After all, if you really believe that the man is a genocidal tyrant, why wouldn’t you want him dead?
Believing what they are told
Of course, many of those engaging in such hyperbole don’t really believe what they say about democracy ending if Trump wins in November.
The talk about a war on democracy in both the United States and Israel—where leftist elites claim an attempt to rein in the out-of-control power of the country’s Supreme Court and make the state more democratic is actually an authoritarian plot—is a cynical power play on the part of the loudest advocates of that point of view. But they’ve convinced their supporters that the country really was imperiled by judicial reform.
The same is true for many of the Americans who listen to the talking heads on MSNBC and actually believe what they say about Trump seeking to install a dictatorship. By the same token, some on the right are readier to believe that the shocking failure of the Secret Service at the Butler, Pennsylvania Trump rally was a plot by sinister forces, rather than just the incompetence of an agency that may well have sacrificed its competence in the name of enforcing the new rules of diversity, equity and inclusion in hiring personnel.
That’s why the next four months until the presidential election will see even more intemperate rhetoric. It’s especially likely because Trump is leading the race, which will make Democrats who foolishly believe they are reenacting the last days of the Weimar Republic even more desperate, whether or not a diminished Biden is replaced as the Democratic candidate.
Once the votes are counted, it’s hardly unreasonable to expect political violence and riots if Democrats really believe the myths they’ve been peddled about the horrors awaiting the nation in a second term for Trump. Similarly, Trump’s clear advantage will make Republicans reluctant to meekly accept a Democratic win if they are able to carry out a miraculous comeback.
The situation in Israel is no less dire, since the left is likely to reject any outcome that doesn’t bring about Netanyahu’s ouster.
If our political class were serious about lowering the temperature and avoiding violence, it would give up its absurd claims about its opponents. But, as we’ve seen this week, Democrats have painted themselves into a corner that doesn’t allow for shunning the Trump-is-Hitler narrative, no matter what happens or what he does.
Most ordinary Americans and Israelis hate the talk of civil war and oppose the lurch toward chaos that such hyperbole promises. But stopping it will be difficult with the media and politicians showing no willingness to cease characterizing their opponents as beyond the pale. Unless they do, things will continue to get worse before they can start getting better.
Jonathan S. Tobin is editor-in-chief of JNS (Jewish News Syndicate). Follow him @jonathans_tobin.