Last Saturday, the owner of the Red Hen in Lexington, Va., asked White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders to leave her restaurant. Since that and other incidents, many have been debating the role civility should have in politics. The Washington Post editorial board warned that justifying certain types of incivility is a slippery slope, while Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times argued that the nation is facing not “a breakdown in civility [but] a breakdown of democracy.”
When angry, humans are inclined to act. Do nonviolent name-calling, harassment and other forms of incivility suggest that America is failing to live up to its democratic ideals? CONT.
Emily Sydnor (Southwestern U.), Monkey Cage