Why Civility Failed
The Real Problem With American Politics
Sources
I very nearly decided not to bother with citations for three reasons:
First, the focus of this book is not about establishing the truth or falsehood of any particular claim about public policy; it is about my experiences and observations of how we talk about public policy and what it does to us. It is original research.
Second, nobody is listening anyways. Minds are already made up and battle lines are drawn. There are no sources I could cite that would satisfy everyone. Republicans say the New York Times lies. Democrats say FOX News lies. Both say that the very same textbooks and newspapers lie in favor of the other side. What’s the point of citations?
Third, sources for stories more than two years old are very hard to find. Much of my knowledge came from reading books, but I either never owned these books (getting them from the library) or else I had to give them all away when I moved. I currently have neither the money to buy them nor the space to keep them. This makes finding a particular quote or page number impossible. Sometimes a claim I make has no single quote I can point to – but I know I can prove it based on a combination of supporting evidence. However, this would itself be several pages of text and I don’t have that kind of patience.
When I did decide to hunt for sources anyways, I was surprised how few I had trouble with. The bottom line is that even if there is some doubt about my details, the basic narrative of this book is probably true. If I have one example wrong, there are other examples that better fit. There is certainly enough out there to support my case. There is no excuse for ignorance.
1.
https://www.foxnews.com/story/raw-data-joseph-stack-suicide-manifesto
2.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/juliareinstein/portland-suspect#.ujZWqRwoG
3.
https://ropercenter.cornell.edu/how_groups_voted?utm_source=link_newsv9&utm_campaign=item_320903&utm_medium=copy
4.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nolan_Chart
5.
https://www.mysanantonio.com/news/education/article/Tea-Party-upset-with-teacher-s-Nazi-comment-2194200.php
6.
https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2011/07/25/rick-perry-stands-by-texas-dream-act
7.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/in-virginia-huckabee-defends-dreamer-benefits
8.
https://archive.org/details/GeorgeZimmermanTrialVids
9.
https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/pelosi-patriot-prayer-san-francisco-white-supremacist-rally/
10.
Although this was all over the news when it first happened, I had trouble finding good sources for it now. However, here is a YouTube video showing part of what I mean (assuming it is still up).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P44q7Jt68DA
11.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/reid-romney-taxes_n_1728511
12.
Because there is some dispute about what happened, here are two sources:
https://www.foxnews.com/story/disgraceful-cops-angry-after-obama-slams-arrest-of-black-scholar
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/obama-cops-acted-stupidly-in-professors-arrest/
13.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/white-house-escalates-war-of-words-with-fox-news
14.
https://cnsnews.com/news/article/melanie-hunter/ag-lynch-doj-has-discussed-whether-pursue-legal-action-against-climate
15.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2013/10/30/healthcare-plans-obama-doctors/3313365/
16.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2013/11/01/the-reason-that-shovel-ready-stimulus-didnt-work-is-that-there-wasnt-any-stimulus/
17.
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/just-the-facts-what-we-know-about-the-nsa-spying-on-americans/
18.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3404112/Emails-Hillary-Clinton-daughter-Chelsea-night-Benghazi-attacks-revealed.html
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/fact-check-hillary-came-up-with-benghazi-video-explanation
https://cnsnews.com/news/article/susan-jones/benghazi-was-planned-attack-not-protest-clinton-told-egyptian-pm-24-hours
19.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/crime-courts/fbi-releases-documents-showing-payments-trump-dossier-author-steele-n897506
20.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/wikileaks-dnc-bernie-sanders_n_579381fbe4b02d5d5ed1d157
21.
Because old videos have a tendency to disappear, here are four clips from the same interview:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOYNe1Vc3gU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdHWU5jDQ2w
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oesl2RXpfPQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXA--dj2-CY
22.
https://www.politico.com/story/2011/04/birtherism-where-it-all-began-053563
23.
This article details the reasons some Dems had questions about vaccine safety:
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/coronavirus-vaccine-trump-2020-election_n_5f60cc29c5b65fd7b8550ef9
There are many clips of Biden, Harris, Cuomo, and Pelosi expressing distrust in Trump, yet trusting Fauci and other scientists on the vaccine, but in the article below, Harris goes further, suggesting that scientists might be “muzzled.”
https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/05/politics/kamala-harris-not-trust-trump-vaccine-cnntv/index.html
24.
https://twitter.com/SarahPalinUSA/status/10935548053
25.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jared-loughner-who-shot-gabrielle-giffords-in-tucson-ranted-online/
26.
Unable to find the original clip, I found a copy here:
https://theconservativeopinion.com/tucker-fires-back-at-kamala-for-scolding-conservatives-who-pronounce-her-name-wrong/
27.
Unable to find the original clip, I found some of Hannity’s thoughts here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8ccsLYXRmw
28.
It was surprisingly hard to find known Democrats condemning the action, but at least one CNN anchor had some trouble with the plan:
https://transcripts.cnn.com/show/ctw/date/2010-09-07/segment/01
29.
The original story is nowhere to be found or is behind paywalls, but here are two blogs with broken links that mention something that might be the same story:
http://www.dvorak.org/blog/2008/07/10/black-hole-reference-requires-apology-for-racist-remark/
https://www.npr.org/sections/newsandviews/2008/07/is_black_hole_a_racist_term.html
30.
Fox seems to have dropped the page, but here are two blogs that mention the event:
https://proteinwisdom.com/?p=56678
https://americaswatchtower.com/2015/04/18/stevenson-college-apologizes-after-serving-mexican-food-at-a-space-themed-event/
31.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/boston-herald-apologizes-for-obama-watermelon-toothpaste-cartoon/
32.
As I distinctly remember it from 2008, Obama said he did not want to offend voters for whom displays of patriotism could be mistaken for support of the controversial Iraq war. I thought this was stupid. Unfortunately, now I am only able to find quotes of him saying he preferred to show his patriotism in action rather than in appearance, which sounds quite reasonable to me. I even found articles claiming that he started wearing it again after being asked. Either way, it was a dumb story all around.
33.
Such was the way I heard the story, but for the book I was unable to confirm that Trump called Palm Beach, or any other municipality, anti-American or unpatriotic, but he does seem to have trouble-making tendencies, as this story shows:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/10/20/fact-check-donald-trump-and-mar-lagos-fight-over-flagpole/5921390002/
34.
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-06-24/column-trump-revives-banning-flag-burning
35.
https://time.com/3923128/donald-trump-announcement-speech/
36.
https://hughhewitt.com/donald-trump-makes-return-visit/#more-31501
37.
The videos appear broken, but there are well over a dozen websites that cover this story. Here are two:
https://www.msnbc.com/the-ed-show/watch/romneys-wawas-moment-43913795945
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/msnbc-edited-romney-wawa-video-katrina-trinko/
38.
Over and over and over and over and over and over…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeK-f3_7Wv4
39.
Here he condemns the KKK by name, but not Antifa:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00RAteYexNA
Here he condemns both sides (not by name):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqRAI7guMFo&list=TLPQMjcwNTIwMjIeQKSoYUPD_g&index=2
Here he explains in great detail what really happened:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nYLSAgj0Hk&list=TLPQMjcwNTIwMjIeQKSoYUPD_g&index=3
40.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/just-how-far-is-the-groun_b_660585
41.
https://www.wesh.com/article/witness-trayvon-martin-was-on-top-of-george-zimmerman-in-ground-and-pound-position-during-struggle/4425786#
https://archive.org/details/GeorgeZimmermanTrialVids
42.
I watched the entire trial on television and I remember clearly from the girlfriend’s testimony that Trayvon had made it safely home before going back outside to confront the “cracker.”
https://archive.org/details/GeorgeZimmermanTrialVids
43.
https://www.foxnews.com/transcript/alleged-trayvon-martin-revenge-beating-a-hate-crime
44.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/george-zimmerman-sues-nbc-over-edited-911-tape/
45.
https://heavy.com/news/2016/10/democrats-incite-start-violence-at-trump-rallies-video-violent-protests-agitator-dnc-democracy-partners-scott-foval-james-okeefe-veritas-hoax-truth/
46.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/25/politics/maxine-waters-trump-officials/index.html
47.
I remember reading in the Providence Journal in 2018 an article which mentioned offhand as a matter of established fact that it was newly illegal for doctors to advise their underage patients against sex reassignment surgery. I don’t remember the title. It was not an opinion piece. Long after I had debunked this, I read a later article that merely stated that there were those that had claimed a similar law in Massachusetts could be misinterpreted by the courts to mean the same thing.
Unfortunately, I can find neither article now. However, I did find that the ACLU of RI had suggested the possibility that the law could be interpreted in all kinds of scary and contradictory ways. It is highly probable that some journalist somewhere might have been confused and reported these musings as fact.
https://riaclu.org/en/news/why-aclu-rhode-island-opposes-conversion-therapy-also-opposes-legislation-ban-it
48.
https://www.gq.com/story/duck-dynasty-phil-robertson#ixzz2o2eujjxZ
49.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLBTOHtjiB0
50.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fk6eDKjQm4c
51.
I couldn’t find the first time he responded to the issue, but here is a just-as-good video wherein he is asked about previous comments:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMRd4QcqyAM
First, the focus of this book is not about establishing the truth or falsehood of any particular claim about public policy; it is about my experiences and observations of how we talk about public policy and what it does to us. It is original research.
Second, nobody is listening anyways. Minds are already made up and battle lines are drawn. There are no sources I could cite that would satisfy everyone. Republicans say the New York Times lies. Democrats say FOX News lies. Both say that the very same textbooks and newspapers lie in favor of the other side. What’s the point of citations?
Third, sources for stories more than two years old are very hard to find. Much of my knowledge came from reading books, but I either never owned these books (getting them from the library) or else I had to give them all away when I moved. I currently have neither the money to buy them nor the space to keep them. This makes finding a particular quote or page number impossible. Sometimes a claim I make has no single quote I can point to – but I know I can prove it based on a combination of supporting evidence. However, this would itself be several pages of text and I don’t have that kind of patience.
When I did decide to hunt for sources anyways, I was surprised how few I had trouble with. The bottom line is that even if there is some doubt about my details, the basic narrative of this book is probably true. If I have one example wrong, there are other examples that better fit. There is certainly enough out there to support my case. There is no excuse for ignorance.
1.
https://www.foxnews.com/story/raw-data-joseph-stack-suicide-manifesto
2.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/juliareinstein/portland-suspect#.ujZWqRwoG
3.
https://ropercenter.cornell.edu/how_groups_voted?utm_source=link_newsv9&utm_campaign=item_320903&utm_medium=copy
4.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nolan_Chart
5.
https://www.mysanantonio.com/news/education/article/Tea-Party-upset-with-teacher-s-Nazi-comment-2194200.php
6.
https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2011/07/25/rick-perry-stands-by-texas-dream-act
7.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/in-virginia-huckabee-defends-dreamer-benefits
8.
https://archive.org/details/GeorgeZimmermanTrialVids
9.
https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/pelosi-patriot-prayer-san-francisco-white-supremacist-rally/
10.
Although this was all over the news when it first happened, I had trouble finding good sources for it now. However, here is a YouTube video showing part of what I mean (assuming it is still up).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P44q7Jt68DA
11.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/reid-romney-taxes_n_1728511
12.
Because there is some dispute about what happened, here are two sources:
https://www.foxnews.com/story/disgraceful-cops-angry-after-obama-slams-arrest-of-black-scholar
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/obama-cops-acted-stupidly-in-professors-arrest/
13.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/white-house-escalates-war-of-words-with-fox-news
14.
https://cnsnews.com/news/article/melanie-hunter/ag-lynch-doj-has-discussed-whether-pursue-legal-action-against-climate
15.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2013/10/30/healthcare-plans-obama-doctors/3313365/
16.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2013/11/01/the-reason-that-shovel-ready-stimulus-didnt-work-is-that-there-wasnt-any-stimulus/
17.
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/just-the-facts-what-we-know-about-the-nsa-spying-on-americans/
18.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3404112/Emails-Hillary-Clinton-daughter-Chelsea-night-Benghazi-attacks-revealed.html
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/fact-check-hillary-came-up-with-benghazi-video-explanation
https://cnsnews.com/news/article/susan-jones/benghazi-was-planned-attack-not-protest-clinton-told-egyptian-pm-24-hours
19.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/crime-courts/fbi-releases-documents-showing-payments-trump-dossier-author-steele-n897506
20.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/wikileaks-dnc-bernie-sanders_n_579381fbe4b02d5d5ed1d157
21.
Because old videos have a tendency to disappear, here are four clips from the same interview:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOYNe1Vc3gU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdHWU5jDQ2w
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oesl2RXpfPQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXA--dj2-CY
22.
https://www.politico.com/story/2011/04/birtherism-where-it-all-began-053563
23.
This article details the reasons some Dems had questions about vaccine safety:
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/coronavirus-vaccine-trump-2020-election_n_5f60cc29c5b65fd7b8550ef9
There are many clips of Biden, Harris, Cuomo, and Pelosi expressing distrust in Trump, yet trusting Fauci and other scientists on the vaccine, but in the article below, Harris goes further, suggesting that scientists might be “muzzled.”
https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/05/politics/kamala-harris-not-trust-trump-vaccine-cnntv/index.html
24.
https://twitter.com/SarahPalinUSA/status/10935548053
25.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jared-loughner-who-shot-gabrielle-giffords-in-tucson-ranted-online/
26.
Unable to find the original clip, I found a copy here:
https://theconservativeopinion.com/tucker-fires-back-at-kamala-for-scolding-conservatives-who-pronounce-her-name-wrong/
27.
Unable to find the original clip, I found some of Hannity’s thoughts here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8ccsLYXRmw
28.
It was surprisingly hard to find known Democrats condemning the action, but at least one CNN anchor had some trouble with the plan:
https://transcripts.cnn.com/show/ctw/date/2010-09-07/segment/01
29.
The original story is nowhere to be found or is behind paywalls, but here are two blogs with broken links that mention something that might be the same story:
http://www.dvorak.org/blog/2008/07/10/black-hole-reference-requires-apology-for-racist-remark/
https://www.npr.org/sections/newsandviews/2008/07/is_black_hole_a_racist_term.html
30.
Fox seems to have dropped the page, but here are two blogs that mention the event:
https://proteinwisdom.com/?p=56678
https://americaswatchtower.com/2015/04/18/stevenson-college-apologizes-after-serving-mexican-food-at-a-space-themed-event/
31.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/boston-herald-apologizes-for-obama-watermelon-toothpaste-cartoon/
32.
As I distinctly remember it from 2008, Obama said he did not want to offend voters for whom displays of patriotism could be mistaken for support of the controversial Iraq war. I thought this was stupid. Unfortunately, now I am only able to find quotes of him saying he preferred to show his patriotism in action rather than in appearance, which sounds quite reasonable to me. I even found articles claiming that he started wearing it again after being asked. Either way, it was a dumb story all around.
33.
Such was the way I heard the story, but for the book I was unable to confirm that Trump called Palm Beach, or any other municipality, anti-American or unpatriotic, but he does seem to have trouble-making tendencies, as this story shows:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/10/20/fact-check-donald-trump-and-mar-lagos-fight-over-flagpole/5921390002/
34.
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-06-24/column-trump-revives-banning-flag-burning
35.
https://time.com/3923128/donald-trump-announcement-speech/
36.
https://hughhewitt.com/donald-trump-makes-return-visit/#more-31501
37.
The videos appear broken, but there are well over a dozen websites that cover this story. Here are two:
https://www.msnbc.com/the-ed-show/watch/romneys-wawas-moment-43913795945
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/msnbc-edited-romney-wawa-video-katrina-trinko/
38.
Over and over and over and over and over and over…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeK-f3_7Wv4
39.
Here he condemns the KKK by name, but not Antifa:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00RAteYexNA
Here he condemns both sides (not by name):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqRAI7guMFo&list=TLPQMjcwNTIwMjIeQKSoYUPD_g&index=2
Here he explains in great detail what really happened:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nYLSAgj0Hk&list=TLPQMjcwNTIwMjIeQKSoYUPD_g&index=3
40.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/just-how-far-is-the-groun_b_660585
41.
https://www.wesh.com/article/witness-trayvon-martin-was-on-top-of-george-zimmerman-in-ground-and-pound-position-during-struggle/4425786#
https://archive.org/details/GeorgeZimmermanTrialVids
42.
I watched the entire trial on television and I remember clearly from the girlfriend’s testimony that Trayvon had made it safely home before going back outside to confront the “cracker.”
https://archive.org/details/GeorgeZimmermanTrialVids
43.
https://www.foxnews.com/transcript/alleged-trayvon-martin-revenge-beating-a-hate-crime
44.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/george-zimmerman-sues-nbc-over-edited-911-tape/
45.
https://heavy.com/news/2016/10/democrats-incite-start-violence-at-trump-rallies-video-violent-protests-agitator-dnc-democracy-partners-scott-foval-james-okeefe-veritas-hoax-truth/
46.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/25/politics/maxine-waters-trump-officials/index.html
47.
I remember reading in the Providence Journal in 2018 an article which mentioned offhand as a matter of established fact that it was newly illegal for doctors to advise their underage patients against sex reassignment surgery. I don’t remember the title. It was not an opinion piece. Long after I had debunked this, I read a later article that merely stated that there were those that had claimed a similar law in Massachusetts could be misinterpreted by the courts to mean the same thing.
Unfortunately, I can find neither article now. However, I did find that the ACLU of RI had suggested the possibility that the law could be interpreted in all kinds of scary and contradictory ways. It is highly probable that some journalist somewhere might have been confused and reported these musings as fact.
https://riaclu.org/en/news/why-aclu-rhode-island-opposes-conversion-therapy-also-opposes-legislation-ban-it
48.
https://www.gq.com/story/duck-dynasty-phil-robertson#ixzz2o2eujjxZ
49.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLBTOHtjiB0
50.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fk6eDKjQm4c
51.
I couldn’t find the first time he responded to the issue, but here is a just-as-good video wherein he is asked about previous comments:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMRd4QcqyAM