Pundits and Politicians: Smearing the Voters

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Voters don't doubt that the level of vitriol in the politics has escalated to a crescendo. The President exhibits the crudest and nastiest behavior since LBJ or Nixon, but while they limited their bad behavior to private settings, Trump plays the bully publicly. Surrogates for the Sanders and Biden campaigns are engaged in a war of words to secure their candidate the nomination. Still, the modern citizen can console themselves with the realization that a rough primary doesn't preclude or even weaken a candidate. The 2008 Democratic primary between Clinton and Obama was much more divisive than either the 2016 primary or the 2020. Clinton implied Obama was Muslim, insisted he denounce Louis Farrakhan's endorsement, and suggested McCain was better prepared to be President than Obama when she said, “[Republican nominee John McCain] has never been the president, but he will put forth his lifetime of experience. I will put forth my lifetime of experience. Senator Obama will put forth a speech he made in 2002." But Obama beat McCain in 2008. Trump accused one candidate's father of killing JFK and implied a female moderator was asking him tough questions because of her bodily functions (among other things). And he still became President in 2016.

Though the founding fathers were more discrete, not haranguing their opposition personally, they hired hatchet men, and encouraged newspapers to publish blistering attacks. An ally of John Adams suggested that Jefferson, “would see our wives and daughters the victims of legal prostitution,” while James Callender wrote of Adams that he, “behaved neither like a man nor a woman, but instead possessed a hideous hermaphroditical character.” Politicians shouldn't lie, slander, or suggest conceits they don't believe, and the public should hold them accountable. They should be committed to the truth, but it's comforting that such behavior hasn't broken the republic, and there's little evidence that slander by primary opponents harms presidential campaigns (see Obama and Trump).

What is worrying is a shift in focus from the candidates to the voters.

There may be other examples, but the 2016 election highlighted this trend. On September 10th, 2016, Hillary Clinton called half of Trump supporters Deplorables. She called them racist, sexist, and homophobic. She apologized by saying she was wrong, it wasn't half. Hillary Clinton didn't stop there. Though the man who created the term Bernie Bro wasn't affiliated with her campaign, it didn't stop her from popularizing it. Brian Fallon, national press secretary for Clinton said Bernie Bros were nasty and vitriolic and implied that Sanders was actively inspiring and leading their efforts.

Trump undertook similar tactics, labeling Mexicans as criminals and rapists, and implying that Hispanic voters were disloyal to the United States. Then he expanded his insults to include to refugees, democratic voters, women, and African Americans among others. He attacked these people because he saw them as political enemies. In response to the President's behavior and a possible connection to Russia, some pundits called Republican voters racist and traitors.

After the 2020 South Carolina primary, other political pundits implied that African American voters who choose Joe Biden were uneducated, or ill informed, because they were voting against their own interests. Biden struck back, saying, “I’m going to get a lot of suggestions on how to respond to what I suspect will be an increasingly negative campaign that the Bernie Brothers will run.” And at a Biden rally in March, the presidential candidate dismissed protesters against NAFTA as Bernie Bros, and implied they were in league with President Trump.

Aside from the preposterousness of labeling 32,000,000 American voters as Deplorables, racists, and traitors, of calling 13,000,000 voters Bernie Bros, of implying that a sizable plurality of Hispanics in the United States are disloyal, or that 260,000 people were too ill-informed to make good voting choices, this policy is detrimental to the country.

Readers might have been taught to overlook insults, with the famous famous sticks and stones rhyme taught to them as children, but it's impossible to ignore the the degrading effect of belittling other human beings. Cruelty, and yes verbal harassment is cruelty, can not improve anyone. Those who are vicious to some, are vicious to all. Attacking voters will never convince them to agree with the assaulter's opinion. Harassment pushes potential converts away, instead of drawing them in. To form a viable political movement, advocates need to expand their candidate's pool of voters by speaking about the politicians and their policies. Insulting potential voters limits a candidate's voter base. It causes collateral damage as those on the sidelines see vitriol spewed against the average person.

Pretending a heterogeneous group is homogeneous because of their preference for a candidate is a gross generalization that dismisses a diversity of opinions and experiences. It delegitimizes a movement with the acceptance of the label. It exacerbates the us vs them political arena, where the them aren't just political foes but mortal enemies who can't be trusted to run the country. Its cruelty allows for the shrouding of the many voices that make a campaign, and at its worst enables violence against the them.

At the New Hampshire rally before the vote, Sanders accused the President of many deplorable behaviors, but he never generalized and criticized the citizens who voted for Trump. 

Clinton was correct when she said that bullies use the internet to say, “the most vile, harassing, and incredibly mean-spirited things … about people.” But while it's inexcusable that the average citizen attack another person online, the real problem might still be when politicians and pundits smear voters on their public forums.

Especially when one candidate disavows their nasty followers.

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