FROM THE EDITOR - Ballots Are Set, and Political Language Is Heating Up ...
... the time to take a principled stand against dehumanizing speech has arrived.
By Martin Davis
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
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With the certification of candidates for local and state-wide offices completed, expect the battles between candidates to become more heated.
Elections are, by their nature, testy affairs. There’s never been a time in our nation’s history when that wasn’t the case.
Unfortunately, violence, too, has always been a part of the American political story — the popularity of the play Hamilton helped remind Americans of that.
Incidents of political violence are rightly drawing renewed scrutiny and capturing headlines. Recent high-profile events — the attempted assassinations against then-candidate Trump in the lead-up to the 2024 election, and the targeted murders and attempted murders of two Minnesota state senators and their spouses — are simply the peak of a more-disturbing trend.
Virginia has not been immune to that violence. Either in its past, or in our own time. The 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, for example, ultimately led to the death of Heather Heyer and the injury of 19 other individuals.
What moves people to political violence is not well-understood. However, there is growing scrutiny by academics and journalists of the relationship between hate speech and political violence.
No Straight Line from Hate Speech to Violence
The relationship between hate speech and violence is not simple.
Part of the problem comes in defining what hate speech is. The Social Science Research Council has created a Hate-Speech Intensity Scale to help clarify the different categories of hate speech. It identifies three broad categories: 1. Dehumanization and Demonization, 2. Violence and Incitement, 3. Early Warning.
The scale then identifies six typologies, outlined in the chart below. Categories 1 to 3 fall in the Early Warning category; Category 4 involves Dehumanization and Demonization; and Categories 5 to 6 involve Violence and Incitement.
The authors of this SSRC scale warn, however, against suggesting that a particular type of speech will lead to a particular action. People “do not easily change their opinions,” the researchers reported. As such, exposure to hate speech will likely have different effects on different individuals.”
In other words, there is no straight line between hate speech and violence.
Still, ask people if we’re better off without speech that appeals to the human propensity to hate other humans, and few would disagree.
A Shared Problem
Researchers are, in many ways, in the infancy of political violence and hate-speech research. As noted, the relationship between hate speech and violence is complicated. What isn’t complicated is that all sides of the political spectrum can, and do, take part.
Consider the recent Brennan Center for Justice report about the intimidation of state and local officeholders. While high-profile acts of violence grab the headlines (the shooting of Rep. Steve Scalise, the hammer attack on Nancy Pelosi’s husband, the assassination attempts on Trump, and the murders in Minnesota), “officeholders serving in local and state government across the country have faced a barrage of intimidating abuse.”
Working from a series of surveys completed in 2023, the report found “More than 40 percent of state legislators experienced threats or attacks within the past three years, and more than 18 percent of local officeholders experienced threats or attacks within the past year and a half. The numbers balloon to 89 percent of state legislators and 52 percent of local officeholders when less severe forms of abuse — insults or harassment such as stalking — are included.”
More important, this abuse is spread across the political spectrum.
“Larger shares of women than men,” its authors wrote, “and larger shares of Republicans than Democrats, reported increases in the severity of abuse since first taking public office.”
Though the mechanisms that push us toward hate speech and violence are not well understood, there is a growing consensus that polarization has a role to play.
A report from The Carnegie Institute for International Peace, “Polarization, Democracy, and Political Violence in the United States: What the Research Says,” finds that it’s not ideology that drives that polarization, but rather “affective polarization.”
This is an academic way to say that we are “emotionally polarized …. In other words, [Americans] do not like members of the other party.”
Stemming affective polarization, the report states, is only possible when efforts “directly address antidemocratic behaviors and/or violence at the social and political level.”
In other words, the way our politicians behave is important in lowering the temperature in our society.
Take the High Road
Donald Trump has rightly been criticized for using language that feeds on affective polarization. Dehumanizing speech about immigrants, less-developed nations, journalists, Muslims and more are damaging our ability to generate civil discussion in the public square.
This language and the souring effect it is having on public discourse should be a signal to all politicians that we can only end it by refusing to take part in it.
Put another way, it’s time for all of us to start taking the higher road.
This past week, two of Virginia’s highest-profile candidates — Abigail Spanberger and Jay Jones — had opportunities to take that higher road, and demonstrate speech that draws out their disagreements with their opponents without escalating people’s emotional polarization.
One showed what’s possible, one showed the work that remains.
What’s Possible
The announcement that University of Virginia President Jim Ryan would step aside rattled people across the commonwealth. Spanberger, who is the Democratic nominee for governor, offered the following response on X:
The resignation of President Jim Ryan is a loss for the University of Virginia and the Commonwealth. That the president of a top-ranked, thriving public university would be pressured to resign by the Department of Justice — in order to avoid further harm and harassment from the Trump Administration — is a clear infringement upon academic freedom and should concern every Virginian and American. As an alumna of the University of Virginia, I am deeply saddened to see our Governor, his Administration, and so many members of the Board of Visitors remain silent in the face of these attacks on the integrity and independence of the University of Virginia. As Governor, I will take decisive steps to ensure that all of our Commonwealth’s Boards of Visitors are composed of individuals committed to the mission of serving and strengthening our public colleges and universities. I will work to restore a standard of leadership that puts academic excellence, Virginia’s students, and the strength of Virginia’s public colleges and universities ahead of any political agenda.
Spanberger’s response accomplishes several things. It places the blame for Ryan’s resignation at the feet of the Trump Administration, it calls out the current Republican leadership in Virginia for being “silent,” and puts forward what she would do were she to become governor to protect the university from such actions.
The statement is strongly worded, without stooping to ad hominem attacks, while simultaneously explaining how she would, as governor, be different.
People can, and will, argue about whether Spanberger’s reading of the situation is correct. Few, however, would find her language or the points she is making out-of-line with acceptable political speech.
This is how we would hope our political candidates would act.
The Work That Remains
Also this past week, Democratic candidate for attorney general Jay Jones, or his campaign, issued a fundraising letter that positions the Democrats running for Governor (Spanberger), Lt. Governor (Ghazala Hashmi), and Attorney General (Jones) in Virginia relative to their opponents.
He criticizes Republican gubernatorial candidate Winsome Earl-Sears for supporting “an almost-total abortion ban and opposes same-sex marriage.” And he criticizes the Republican candidate for Lt. Governor (John Reid) as “an unserious talk radio host who barely has the backing of his own party.”
And of Jones’ opponent, Miyares, he writes: he “is a right-wing extremist with a record of supporting Trump’s agenda in Virginia.”
As with Spanberger, people can, and will, argue about whether Jones’ reading of the situation is correct. Few, however, would find his language or the points he is making out-of-line with acceptable political speech.
Unfortunately, Jones didn’t stop there. He included the following. “And my opponent, their nominee for Attorney General — you know him, you hate him …”
Let’s hope that this was a misstep, and not a prelude for how Jones will run his campaign. There are plenty of valid reason for Jones to strongly disagree with Miyares — and there are many Virginians who will agree with him — without resorting to appeals to people’s emotionally polarized views.
Be Better
Over the past two election cycles, the Advance has fielded calls from those manning tents and distributing literature outside polling locations describing varying levels of verbal harassment from individuals arriving to vote. We’ve even received calls from volunteers describing harassing and hateful language from other volunteers on the opposing political side.
These calls have come from both Democratic and Republican volunteers, which is in line with what the Brennan Center for Justice has found.
Over the next three elections, the opportunities for hate-filled speech in our political culture will abound.
The debates before us are significant, and they will have profound effects on our society for generations to come. Individuals should feel free to have robust discussions about these issues and how they are affecting their communities.
Politicians should feel free to frame their cases in terms that make clear the stark differences between them and their opponents.
All parties, however, should be mindful of the fine line between strenuous debate and language that appeals to our baser instincts.
We are watching in real-time the devastating results of hateful language taken to extremes.
Rather than furthering the patterns that are escalating hateful emotions, local citizens and those seeking public office can begin now to reset our political debate by remembering four simple things:
Choose argument, not attack.
Voice thoughtful opinion, not hateful speech.
Embrace shared humanity, not dehumanizing speech.
Favor listening to the opposition, not speaking over them.
Elections, by their nature, are testy affairs. They don’t need to appeal to our most base instincts.
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Great piece. Thanks.