Mike McLeod - The Death of Civility and Common Sense: How America Has Become Dangerously Polarized

THE DEATH OF
CIVILITY AND
COMMON SENSE

Published by Gatekeeper Press
3971 Hoover Rd. Suite 77
Columbus, OH 43123-2839

Copyright 2016 by Mike McLeod

All rights reserved. Neither this book, nor any parts within it may be sold or reproduced in any form without permission.

ISBN: 9781619844698
eISBN: 9781619844704

Printed in the United States of America

A house divided against itself cannot stand

Abraham Lincoln

Dedication

T HIS BOOK is dedicated to Hubert Humphrey, the greatest and most courageous man I have ever known. He was not the man who brought me to Washington and gave me an opportunity to work in the Senate. That was Herman Talmadge. Without Talmadge offering me a job that allowed me to work my way through law school, as well as a job in his office upon graduation, I would never have met Humphrey.

Talmadge taught me to be honest and conscientious in all of my professional dealings.

Unfortunately, he was undone by a Greek tragedy I would not have believed. That is addressed in the Appendix of this book.

This book is dedicated to Humphrey because he personified the message that this book is written to convey. He was the "happy warrior" who constantly practiced "the politics of joy". He never made things personal, even when he was passionately debating an issue. He was always courteous and respectful of his fellow man. Some referred to him as "the orator of the dawn".

Nothing more starkly illustrates the character of Humphrey than his death. In the morning of January 3, 1978, I was startled to get a call from him. I snapped to attention when I heard his raspy voice on the phone. "Mike, I want you to get me some new material, like the stuff you used to give me. My staff is just giving me the same old stale material. We have a lot of work do to." I said, "Yes sir, Senator, I will get right on it".

I was baffled. I had known Humphrey was in the hospital battling cancer. I had not seen him in quite a while.

On January 13, Humphrey died at his home in Waverly, Minnesota. I later found out he called a number of old friends in the week before he died.

He even called his old nemesis, Richard Nixon, and invited him to his funeral. And Nixon did come, the first time he returned to Washington since he left in disgrace. I heard later that Humphrey even went around his hospital ward cheering up other sick patients.

After Hubert Humphrey died in early January 1978, his body lay in state in the Capitol Rotunda. He was the 22nd person in American history to be saluted that way. Vice President Mondale delivered a powerful eulogy in the Capitol, "He taught us all how to hope and how to love, how to win and how to lose. He taught us how to live, and finally, he taught us how to die."

I know of no other man who had this much courage and grace while he was dying.

One of my goals in this book is to encourage the republication of Humphrey's autobiography in Kindle format, so that his timeless message and his politics of joy can inspire more people today, as well as future generations. One of the chapters in his book is particularly apt for the problems of today. It is "Compromise is not a dirty word".

Norman Sherman, a former Humphrey aide, wrote a beautiful afterword that was published in 1991 in the paperback version of Humphrey's 1976 book, "The Education of a Public Man". He described the thousands of people who filed past his coffin for a day and night to pay their respects. They included the older blacks, who came because he had been a champion of civil rights. They included union leaders because of his advocacy of the causes of working men. Also, they included Senators, Congressmen, and Congressional staff like me who had been inspired to work in public service because of him.

Another testimony to Humphrey's great humanity is mentioned in his book, "The Education of a Public Man". He told of his troubles in fitting in when he first came to the Senate in 1948. He overheard Senator Richard B Russell of Georgia say to some Senate colleagues in a loud voice meant to heard by him, "Can you imagine that the people of Minnesota would send a damned fool like him to the Senate".

Humphrey's book conceded that Russell was the ablest and most powerful of the Southern senators. When Russell died in 1971, Humphrey went out of his way to fly to Georgia and attend Russell's funeral.

Contents

Why I wrote this book

T HIS BOOK is timely because we are now enduring yet another presidential election campaign. The country is more bitterly divided than at any time in my lifetime. Never has there been a national political campaign where any leading candidate has been as bombastic and insulting as Donald Trump. However this election ends, the nation will be even more divided when it is over.

Trump is unique in the annals of Presidential politics. Unlike other people who are genuinely rich, he delights in saying "I am very rich" or "I have a lot of money". He is very well known, because of his successful television reality show, "The Apprentice", where he delighted in saying "you're fired".

Trump had threatened to run in previous presidential elections but never did so. However, he was given a chance to express his opinions on everything on Fox News, which is favored by conservatives. He did not have to even show up for an interview. He simply called in on a regular basis and gave his commentary. This is why his behavior in the first Republican debate was so bizarre.

That debate was moderated on August 6 by Megyn Kelly, who has a very popular news show, "The Kelly File", on Fox News. She asked him some tough questions on his misogynistic comments about women. This was his response, in an interview by CNN's Don Lennon:

"You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes," he said. "Blood coming out of her wherever"

Trump them followed up by expressing his displeasure with Fox News in general. After having received a free platform from Fox for years, he boycotted Fox News on the next Sunday talk shows.

Trump has continued his insults of people he doesn't like, such as immigrants, other candidates, and people with disabilities. He continued his assaults on women by dismissing Carly Fiorina by saying "Look at that face. How can you vote for that?" He made fun of perhaps the most respected conservative political commentator in the nation, Charles Krauthammer, by saying, "The guy can't even put his pants on". (Krauthammer has been disabled since a swimming accident he suffered in medical school.)

Trump is the first candidate in memory who has made frequent use of the F bomb.

As bad as things have become in the current Presidential campaign, they have become almost as bad in many congressional races, which occur every two years. Even Senators, who are elected for 6 year terms, must immediately start raising money to pay off campaign debts and build a war chest for the next election.

The process of gerrymandering congressional districts is a practice that adds to disenchantment with the system. This practice was described in a March 1, 2015 article in the Washington Post by Christopher Ingraham, "How to steal an election". He explains "Contrary to one popular misconception about the practice, the point of gerrymandering isn't to draw yourself a collection of overwhelmingly safe seats. Rather, it's to give your opponents a small number of safe seats, while drawing yourself a larger number of seats that are not quite as safe, but that you can expect to win comfortably."