Politics Lacking Decorum is as Old as Politics Itself: Is the Current Political Atmosphere Anything New?

As can be said about so many things in life, "Perspective is everything." Most of us aren't necessarily historians. Even if we know a little bit about our past, we don't always remember it exactly for what it is, but for what we perceived it to be, based on what we see now.

The reality is that dating all the way back to the 18th Century in American politics, campaigns and politics in general, have always been nasty. And I think it's important to consider that as we get closer to the 2024 election, with so many people having this perception that somehow something has changed in the political discourse.

It really hasn't. It's just different faces and different names, and of course, a lot of how we see it all unfolding depends a lot on how the media portrays things.

And there's no question the media has a clear side and an agenda.

We feel like things are out of order and lacking a sort of decorum. But I think that's more of a perception than a reality. Again, I largely blame the media. They want to present danger, and the only way they can do that is to make things look like they are different now than they have always been.

When you think of all the name calling that has tossed around about Trump, it's really nothing new. In 1796, Alexander Hamilton wrote a piece under a pen name that was a scathing accusation against Thomas Jefferson that he was having an affair with one of his slaves.

Granted, that accusation turned out to be true.

But he also called Jefferson a coward, claimed if he was elected a Civil War would erupt sending the nation into a bloody chaos, and called him an atheist.

Even more telling of the "times," in comparison to the one we are in now, where Trump supporters have been labeled as deplorables, or MAGA extremists, racists and whatever other mean moniker you want to attach to what is being said, is Hamilton's saying of Jefferson supporters, "They are cutthroats who walk in rags and sleep amid filth and vermin."

That's a pretty ugly thing to say about your opponent's supporters. But again, this was 1796. Not 2024.

We act shocked when things like this are said. "Well, I never!" But of course, it's only our perception that ugliness is something new that makes us think that. 

And what about Trump's antics? How foreign is that to politics? Name calling, ridicule, and personal attacks were present in 1796 just like they are now, with Ben Franklin's grandson writing that another opponent, John Adams, was old, bald, querulous, crippled, blind and toothless.

If you simply wrote that line by itself, you might think it was from the pen of Donald Trump himself referring to Joe Biden in a mean tweet.

In 1828 Andrew Jackson was accused of being a cannibal and having eaten indians for breakfast. They called his mother a prostitute and claimed Jackson was the result of a British soldier who consorted with his mother for money.

Imagine these statements today. In fact, if you think about it, today seems tame compared. Has anyone been called a bastard child born from prostitution who ate indians for breakfast?

"Sleepy Joe" almost seems like a nice thing to say. It's rather benign. But of course, Trump gets labeled as dangerous, childish, and just downright mean. "This is so out of the ordinary," people claim. But of course, it's politics as usual. Nothing has changed. The history tells us the real story.

People said about Barry Goldwater that if you elected him the Soviets would drop nuclear bombs on your kids.

I think the thing that is important here is to consider the candidates not for what they say. Not for how they act. Not for the severity of their mudslinging. But for their policies and what they otherwise offer in terms of what they will do for the country. It is also important to restore our understanding of the way things are now so that we can have a better understanding that things really aren't any different now than they were.

We're not in as much of a chaotic, unhinged political environment as we think we are. If 1796 were today, the headline might have been, "Yo mama is a whore!"

Beyond that, it also offers a bit of a perspective into what have been come to be known as, "mean tweets." They didn't have social media back in the day to do their mudslinging and make wild accusations and engage in name calling. They did it in the papers. They did it on the campaign trail during rallies and speeches. The main point here is that they did it. Regardless of the forum. They did it.

Politics is as it has always been. Down. Dirty. Ugly. And nasty. The "pleasant" times of the past is something that only truly exists in our imaginations. And as I said, the chaos an unpleasantries we see today, compared to then, seem rather tame in comparison.

No one's mother has been called a whore and no one has been accused of eating indians for breakfast. Or Mexicans, for that matter, which might as well be the modern-day equivalent. On top of that, one must also consider that election interference is nothing new either. In fact, although Jefferson lost the election to John Adams in 1796, there was an implied notion that the French were interfering in the process to elect Jefferson.

Gosh. Doesn't all this sound familiar?

Like the way I write or the things I write about? Follow me on my Facebook page to keep up with the latest writings wherever I may write them.

© 2024 Jim Bauer