Apocalyptic Language

One of the common complaints about political discourse is that everything is too extreme, too hostile, and so on. It really isn't surprising that it's quite a bit harder to compromise when both sides regard the other as an existential threat.

The problem is that both sides, even as they're wishing for civility and compromise, seem to have no problem with being uncivil if they're sufficiently provoked. Frankly, hard as it may seem to believe, that's probably even a good thing; asking people not to react strongly regardless of the provocation is neither fair nor helpful. And probably not possible either.

However, if we're deciding that some degree of incivility is acceptable, we do have to come up with some kind of standard for when it's justified, and we have to apply that standard fairly to both sides. A significant part of the current problem is that both sides might as well be determining whether any particular expression is justified or not based on who's engaging in it - everything their side does is acceptable, and everything the other side does is not. Even when someone agrees that their side has done something wrong, the unacceptable things they can find from their own side (assuming they're even looking for them) are the exceptions and the extremists that nobody listens to, whereas the unacceptable things they find from the other side (which they are generally looking for quite closely) are evidence that the other side really is just that vile.

That tribalism both gives people an endless stream of reasons to keep turning the intensity up (since their opponents are constantly being unjustifiably uncivil) and convinces them not to back down themselves (since anything that might be called uncivil on their side is justifiable). Trying to call other people out for not having good standards quickly becomes problematic, since it's basically inevitable that the target of such criticism will seize on any ways in which their attacker has been uncivil and use them in turn to argue that their attacker isn't helping either. Those debates are rarely helpful; it's not easy to analyze every decision and debate point that's being made to determine who's less justified.

In the end, the only solution I see is for everyone to be very careful about their own critical thinking skills, even if that is a bit of an unsatisfying answer given how easy that is to say and how hard it is to do. There are times when apocalyptic language is called for, but we should all be very careful about when and why we do that.