The U.S. is seeing a significant increase in the number of threats against elected officials. A political scientist at the University of Illinois at Chicago said those pose an enormous threat to the nation's system of democracy.
Alexandra Filindra will speak 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Illinois State University Bone Student Center. Filindra said in a WGLT interview that political violence damages institutions in a number of ways.
“We have elected officials who are resigning or who do not plan to seek higher office as a result of this phenomenon, because it is getting too much to handle for themselves and for their families. Even their families are receiving threats. Second, we are being told by elected officials they are hesitant to take on issues they consider important and vital for their communities … but that they know will bring on aggression, threats, and harassment … And third, we are depleting the ranks. It is already very difficult to recruit people to serve for office,” said Filindra.
She said these patterns come at a crucial time the U.S. needs the best and brightest serving as the nation and world try to grapple with the significant problems of climate change, and technology changes that affect the workplace, health, and other sectors of life.
“Political violence is a perennial American problem from the beginning of the history of the country, but over the past decade, it has increased exponentially. We see that in the data the U.S. Capitol Police has been putting out, and they're giving us a count of the threats, credible threats against Congress, and we see that the number has been increasing since 2017,” said Filindra.
There are several sources of the rise. She said there are specific political actors who are using narratives of violence that percolate into the public.
“We know from political psychology that leaders play a huge role within social groups, because they define the norms. They tell you what's the yardstick by which to measure yourself and the behavior that that is appropriate and rewarded. When leaders behave and use a lexicon that is very violent, people will follow” said Filindra.
The new media environment allows social media to replicate and escalate disinformation from a variety of "malignant actors." And she said the nation does not have very strong systems to counter it because traditional media has weakened.
“Fact checking is not an effective method, because people, instead of retaining the correction, retain the original lie,” said Filindra. “So we haven’t figured out a very good way to address it.”
Polarization started decades ago in the elites in Congress and public polarization has followed. Another component is low political trust. She said only 20% of Americans say they trust the federal government, which prevents actors from working together to reach cooperation.
“All of these factors play a role in getting people to overcome norms of anti-violence, and norms of civility that we usually have for each other. We tend to expect in our workplace that people will respect us and we tend to be respectful of others when we go to their workplaces, whether it is the doctor's office or the bank … but it this climate has made it so that we approach public service with such level of contempt and such level of derision that we think it is OK to pile abuse on the people who work for the public,” said Filindra.
She said elected officials are not talking at the institutional level across parties about their experiences.
“I have done 116 interviews with sub-national elected officials and staff, city and state level people many of them here in Illinois, but also across the country. And what I'm seeing is that there is no coordination within institutions like legislatures, city halls, state level institutions to address the issue of security and to provide protocols and to provide consistent support for the people who work in in politics,” said Filindra.
She said Democrats and Republicans say they don’t bring it up because they fear it will induce copycat threats.
“Our data suggests actually the opposite, that when citizens are basically informed of such of this plight, on average they become more empathetic, rather than piling on or justifying it,” said Filindra.
Another concern is that any suggestion to use public funds for greater security will be used against them by the other party or create a public backlash.
“There is some truth to the feelings that elected officials have, but at the same time, people not understanding the extent of the problem, and also elected officials not talking to each other about it compounds the issue. It doesn't solve anything,” said Filindra.
Short-term gains and long-term consequences
To break the cycle she said people must realize short-term gains from using violent rhetoric can have long-term consequences.
“It's far easier to destroy democratic institutions than to build them back up. We need and elected officials themselves need to understand their power and become restrained, and that is the hardest part,” said Filindra.
The Civil War and post-Civil War era, the rise of labor starting in the 1870s, the second Klan rising in the 1920s, the Civil Rights era are among the several periods in the nation that had elevated political violence. Yet Filindra said those are perhaps different from today’s situation.
“Another dimension in this is inequality. We have periods of rising inequality, and that tend to coincide with greater upheaval within the country…There is a book called The Four Threats. The authors say there have been periods where you've had high polarization, or high economic inequality, or high racial tensions, or high threats of oligarchy, but you never had all four at the same time, and it seems that this period may be unique for us,” said Filindra.
She also said having 400 million firearms in the hands of civilians has also not happened before.
She said citizens themselves must demand better politics.
“We are the ones who have to start saying, No, I'm not going to behave like this, and I am not going to accept others behaving like this, and I am going to penalize at the polls, those who behave like this. This is not how Americans or human beings of any kind are supposed to behave. And if we are not ready to basically stop it and say no, and we see it as a spectacle, sensationalize politics, and think of it as sort of a protracted TV show outside of our daily lives, rather than integral to our lives, we are in danger,” said Filindra.
She said that is a hard exercise and other countries such as Turkey and Hungary have failed at it.
Filindra said some people are speaking out even though it will be very costly for them. On the other hand, the signals sent by the Washington Post and L.A. Times decision to scrap presidential endorsements this year are very bad, she said, because they suggest people are willing to follow their narrow interests over the public good. Yet Filindra finds some small reason for optimism.
“There is a deep-seated part of the American identity and the American culture that ultimately recognizes the importance of individual freedom, of respect and love for others, and of welcoming others. It is our civic culture. It is part of our religious culture. It is in our DNA, and we need to draw on that part of our civic DNA to overcome this very dark period,” said Filindra.
