Keller @ Large: Is bad behavior the new 'politics as usual?'
BOSTON - Bad behavior during President Biden's State of the Union address: It's not the first time we've seen it, but Tuesday night's speech seemed to hit a new low. At times, it felt like less of a speech and more like a rowdy session of the British Parliament.
Is this going to be our new "politics as usual?"
Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy tried in vain to shush members of his own party intent on heckling and name-calling the president. Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, didn't like the heckling and name-calling. "There's a decorum with the State of the Union, and on either side, I think it's inappropriate," he said.
But it was hardly the first time civility has been cast aside. Remember then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi's impromptu edit of President Trump's last State of the Union address? (She tore it into pieces.)
Watching this year's speech, "I just thought 'What a waste of time for everyone because nothing gets done when people start that way,'" says Boston-based etiquette expert Roseanne Thomas, president of Protocol Advisors. "Civility was actually invented by politicians so that something could get done, so they could discuss things on which they disagreed without getting into personal insults."
But Georgia Republican Marjorie Taylor Green, who repeatedly shouted "liar" at Biden, was unrepentant. "He got exactly what he deserved, and I am not sorry one bit," she said.
That's self-destructive behavior, says Thomas. "I'm thinking to myself, 'I wouldn't feel respected around her, or at least I would feel I would be subject to disrespect at any given time, so I would distance myself from someone like that."
And it seems quite a few swing voters felt the same way. Biden posted some of his most positive ratings in months in the first post-speech polling.
Thomas thinks the tide is turning against this sort of stuff, and you could look back at the chronic incivility of the Trump years and make a connection with Trump's loss of first the House, then the White House and the Senate, as independent voters, especially women, turned away in disgust.
But you can also make a case that in this era, abusive trolling and invective are what gets clicks, talk show ratings and keeps your political base aroused. So while Biden may have benefited from the display in the short run, look for more of the same in the future.