If You Want Me to Be Civil, You Should Be, Too

This is David Frum, the man who came up with the term “Axis of Evil.” For years, he has led the charge against Donald Trump based on the latter’s lack of civility. Well, if all civility gets us is a bunch of pointless, endless wars, no social safety net, and a stolen Supreme Court seat, Frum can stick his precious civility up his holly jolly butt. Image via Flickr by Policy Exchange. Some rights reserved.

Over the past week, talk of being “civil” exploded after Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked to leave a Red Hen restaurant in Virginia and Rep. Maxine Waters told her constituents in Los Angeles to “harass” other officials in Trump’s cabinet. These events follow a month that included the controversy that arose after Samantha Bee called Ivanka Trump a naughty word, Roseanne Barr created a new controversy over Twitter, and a controversy brewed over Michelle Wolf’s set at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. (I talked about the latter in May.)

I must say that the responses to all of these events have been interesting, to say the least, but the ongoing discussion of civility has revealed a whole host of double standards. As a result, we are just now questioning the purpose of and the agendas behind the push for civility. Thus, it is time to talk about when we need to be civil and why civility alone means very little, especially when it is one-sided.

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The Press Is Using Sarah Huckabee Sanders As a Prop

Comedienne Michelle Wolf at the 2018 White House Correspondents’ Dinner. This image was taken via a screenshot.

On Sunday, April 29, 2018, comedian Michelle Wolf received a backlash for her set at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner the previous night. During a nearly 20-minute set, Wolf took aim at the Washington, D.C. crowd, which included politicians and the establishment press. Most of the complaints focused on what Wolf said about White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, but that was a cover — and a lot of conservatives are going along with it because they want to score political points.

Let’s be honest here. Michelle Wolf went after a lot of people in her 19-minute set, including herself. All told, this is who she went after:

• Donald Trump and his campaign
• Hilton (“It’s not nice”)
• C-SPAN (“No one watches that”)
• The White House Correspondents’ Association (“The mung fish was fine”)
• Congress
• Roy Moore
• Reince Priebus
• Jake Tapper
• Hillary Clinton’s campaign
• Men who don’t pull out
• Harvey Weinstein
• Trump’s grown children (except Tiffany)
• Teachers
• Mike Pence
• Anderson Cooper
• Anti-abortionists
• Bear Stearns
• Al Franken
• Ted Kennedy
• Starbucks
• Mitch McConnell
• Paul Ryan
• Chris Christie
• The Republicans
• The Democrats
• Kellyanne Conway
• Scott Pruitt
• Anne Coulter
• CNN
• Fox News
• Sean Hannity
• MSNBC
• Rachel Maddow
• The press collectively
• The anti-immigrant crowd
• Flint, Michigan

Yet we are talking about one person and projecting things onto that comedy set. It says more about us and the press that’s pushing this narrative.