Why our heated political rhetoric will only get worse, not better

Fox News ^ | June 20, 2017 | John R Lott Jr

[richardb72]

Some hope that the shooting of House Majority Whip Steve Scalise and others last Wednesday will lead to more civility in politics. It’s clear that the attack was politically motivated — the Democratic shooter even carried a hit list of Republicans. The political viciousness has been everywhere.

While some will blame the violence on the grotesque picture of Kathy Griffin holding the President’s severed head or a play where the president is being stabbed to death, this Sunday Jill Abramson, the former chief editor of the New York Times, told CNN that it was “President Trump and the congressional leadership on the Republican side [who] are extremely divisive.”

But all these discussions miss something more fundamental that is driving all this, and, unfortunately, the viciousness isn’t likely to abate.

One reason that previous generations didn’t treat their presidents with similar levels of hated is because so much is at stake today. As government has grown, so too have the stakes. This simple point explains everything from increases in campaign spending to increasingly heated judicial confirmations. It explains why political discourse has grown generally more vicious.

Two baseball teams playing in the seventh game of the World Series are probably going to play a lot harder than two teams competing in August with no chance of making the playoffs. In the same way, as the size and scope of the federal government increases, interest groups will spend more on elections in an effort to influence the levers of government.

If federal spending still amounted to two percent to three percent of GDP — as it did a century ago — people likely wouldn’t care as passionately about election outcomes. . . .

[palmer]

There is much to lose, because they are likely to be found out.

Let's say for the sake of argument that Adam Lanza was groomed via the internet to shoot up a school. How would we find that out?

[marktwain]

Let’s say for the sake of argument that Adam Lanza was groomed via the internet to shoot up a school. How would we find that out?

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We already found that out. He studied the other school shootings and was obsessed with them. It is called the copycat effect, and is well known.

He was a creature of the Establishment media, who want more shootings. They do not need a shadowy top-down mind control.

They do it out in the open with their choices about what to publish and push.

But it is a blunt and imprecise tool. What you are suggesting takes considerable precision.

[jeffc]

....congressional leadership on the Republican side [who] are extremely divisive.

Being divisive does not give someone license to grab a gun and start shooting. Many on the right see many on the left as being divisive.