Campaigning by insult hurts governing

Mom asked, “You didn’t make anyone mad today, did you?” I didn’t have the heart to answer truthfully.

She kept asking.

I kept fibbing.

For 27 years, I negotiated and maintained educator contracts. It was adversarial, and I probably made people mad almost every day. Each side had competing interests.

But I can’t remember a time, even during the toughest meetings, when it devolved into insults. There was posturing, pontificating, but no ad hominem insults. We sometimes had bloody tongues from biting off the clever, cutting insults we thought might work. I learned it was more important to collectively problem solve instead of tossing insults across the table.

If you insulted the other side one year, the deal for the next would be doubly difficult. I may have been the spokesperson, but it was their contract. During the day, they worked as a team to teach kids. That’s essential. If we spent the night insulting one another, what would the school day look like?

I learned early in my career it might be cathartic to vent through insult, but there are serious consequences. An insult that hits the mark can start a cycle of bullying that’s hard to stop.

This is a lesson both political parties need to learn.

I don’t clutch pearls over negative campaigning. I’ve been there and done that. But for me, negative campaigning must be true and be about issues voters care about.

Shouting insults makes bipartisan governing later difficult.

Campaigning by insult, insults voters. Here’s what I mean.

Democratic politicians need to stop insulting former President Donald Trump by calling him Hitler. He isn’t. Hitler slaughtered 6 million Jews. To make that comparison cheapens the horror of the Holocaust. The same politician may later need to make a deal with a president they called Hitler. It’s difficult to make a deal with someone you’ve demonized.

Republican politicians need to stop using racial insults against Vice President Kamala Harris. Calling her a “DEI hire” is a racial and gender insult saying she isn’t qualified and was chosen only based on her race and or gender. It’s mean, a lie, and it has no place in our politics.

The latest insults are coming from J.D. Vance, the Republican vice presidential candidate. He claims a woman is “less qualified to lead’ because she hasn’t given birth to children, is a special kind of inappropriate. Calling a person a cat lady isn’t the insult he thinks it is.

It’s also never a good idea to deify a political candidate. They never measure up to God, and It insults all religions no matter what brand.

The problem with calling out this type of political behavior is the same problem parents have when they walk in on an insult fight between children. “He/she started it!”

It’s time to end it.

Only the voters can do it. Most people want politicians to respect the other side long enough to solve real problems together. That’s how collective bargaining worked best and that’s how governing should look.

Bruce Lear 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