In 2020, senior biology major Helen Claire McNulty wrote a plea for civility in American politics in a Daily Mississippian opinion column. In this article, McNulty explained how the election cycle at the time was marked by an unusual absence of political decorum. Distasteful name calling and dismissal of opposing ideas were all too common at the time. If she felt under pressure as a biology major, I can only imagine the insults and arguments being cooked up in the political science department.
Four years later, digging through our published election archive, I considered the state of our political discourse. It is clear that the challenges McNulty highlighted have remained — and even worsened in many cases.
Name an issue, and it seems there are an increasing number of people on either end of the spectrum. In 2024, we find ourselves in an environment where political divisions have further calcified, making civil discourse even more challenging.
Beyond the discourse about policy itself devolving into a battle of who can be the most hateful, political banter seems to be less and less political these days. Name-calling and ad hominem were the star players of our first presidential debate this year, in which more than 50 million viewers watched two elderly men use the national platform to debate golf handicap scores, height, cognitive ability and age.
In the second presidential debate a few weeks ago, our 45th president vilified the entire migrant population in Springfield, Ohio, by claiming they frequently enjoy domesticated pets as a delicacy.
Everybody agrees that debates are not what they once were. In the July debate, questions were asked and left unanswered, as the two candidates swung for the fences against one another, looking to defame one another’s character. The more recent debate left much to be desired, to put it nicely.
This is in stark contrast to previous debates of similar magnitude. Just look at the 2012 debate between President Barack Obama and Republican nominee Mitt Romney. This debate looks like a Catholic church service compared to the past four years of C SPAN content.
In fact, former President Obama commented on the state of things about a month ago during the 2024 Democratic National Convention.
“Our politics has become so polarized these days that all of us across the political spectrum seem so quick to assume the worst in others unless they agree with us on every single issue … after a while, regular folks just tune out or don’t bother to vote at all.”
This phenomenon is at the root of a decaying tree of civility. And since civility is out the window these days, it makes political conversations unnecessarily uncomfortable and even taboo.
While there are plenty of outspoken students on this campus, there are probably just as many who fear that sharing their political opinion will lead to unforeseen, divisive consequences. In turn, this can discourage people from being politically engaged and abandoning their right to vote.
It is not just our potential presidents acting this way, or our senators or our congressmen. This shift in respectability has trickled down to the local level, and it is harming our democracy. It halts productivity for the sake of internet engagement or local notoriety. While that may boost individual career prospects, it stunts the growth of the cities that elected them.
This is the part of the article where the writer would typically offer a solution or reference a historical moment when a resolution was found. The thing is, this problem is very 21st century. With the growth of social media and now the addition of AI, many people think we will see voters continue to shift to either end of the spectrum.
Modern problems call for modern solutions. The ranked choice vote is cited by many as a ballot methodology that can reduce polarization. While the style of voting itself is not new, the implementation and adoption of the system would be a radical change. Proponents of the system appreciate the fact that it pushes away from polarization and celebrates a diverse, broader consensus. The system has been successfully introduced in a handful of states.
Another option commonly shared includes borderline censorship —to expectedly mixed opinions. This idea walks the tightrope of regulating social media that the U.S. government already struggles with.
For example, there are mountains of evidence that strongly suggest the 2016 and 2020 elections were interfered with using social media platforms — yet legislators have yet to figure out a way to protect our democracy from these campaigns.
At any rate, restoring civility and fostering a more respectful political environment will require not just procedural reforms but also a collective effort from citizens, leaders and institutions to re-prioritize empathy, compromise and the shared pursuit of the common good. We the voters are tasked with electing those we see fit to be our representatives. If we want civility back, we must elect leaders who embody that.
Justice Rose is the opinion editor. He is a senior journalism major from Madison, Miss.
