We are fighting a third civil war

Death threats for Republicans in Congress who voted for the Biden infrastructure bill. School board meetings requiring armed guards to keep order. Public schoolteachers branded as the enemy. These are products of the third civil war in America.

We all know about the Civil War between the North and South that some still try to relive by flying the Stars and Bars as a weird, last, rebel yell.

But before the North and South clashed, we had another civil war that Americans called revolutionary, and the British called a rebellion. It was a war between British subjects fed up with tyranny, and British citizens loyal to the Crown. It was a civil war, but now there’s a third civil war raging. It doesn’t matter that the Right calls it “A war to force political correctness,” and the Left calls it “A Republican culture war.”

It’s a civil war on civility.

As families gathered for Easter dinner, there’s a good chance that a skirmish or two erupted casting shade over that pretty, pastel tablecloth and the honey-baked ham.

It might sound like this. Weird Uncle Homer, a recent student of Facebook, announces, “You’d have to be a fool to take that COVID jab. It doesn’t work, and it has a big government tracker in it. It’s a rush job by that Fauci.”

After pin-drop silence, the dissenters around the table attack. Between bites of green bean casserole, family battle lines are drawn over what once was a private medical discussion between doctor and patient.

Humans disagree. If you don’t believe that, try getting a family to agree where to have dinner out. I am not talking about simple disagreement. I am talking about demonizing the other side because of disagreement.

This war on civility violently erupted when disagreement about an election became an insurrection. Those insurrectionists probably had a steady diet of Fox, One America News Network and a heaping helping of talk radio. On those mediums civility is regarded as weakness and aiding the enemy. It’s no wonder, these pretend patriots donned camouflage and brought bear repellent and zip ties to a “Peaceful rally.” They were told the other side stole an election and they were losing America.

I bargained educator contracts for over 30 years. I soon realized if you demonized the other side, you eventually need to make a deal with the devil and sell that deal to your own people. To have a peace treaty in this civil war, we must take steps to treat the disease of war, not the symptoms.

Here are four ideas that may help.

• Staying in D.C. too long insulates politicians from real life. We need to make both chambers turn over, and the quickest way is limiting the number of years they can serve through term limits.

• Ninety-six percent of congressional seats are rated as safe for the incumbent. This means if they work with the other party, they fear a primary more than a defeat by the other party. Districts need to be drawn by a bipartisan commission, not the legislatures.

• Voters need to reward bipartisan compromise. We need to find the middle in both political parties.

• Freedom of speech is a right, but a candidate doesn’t have the right to lie. The Federal Election Commission needs to fact check ads in real time and not let lies win.

Clearly, these ideas are easy to recommend and hard to do. but we need to start somewhere on the road to civility. We’ll always disagree, but we don’t have to be disagreeable. Let’s end this war before our republic is destroyed.

Bruce Lear lives of Sioux City taught for 11 years and represented educators as an Iowa State Education Association Regional Director for 27 years until retiring. BruceLear2419@gmail.com