The idea that there's any objective way to measure "civility" over time seems silly. It's always necessarily a cobbling together of anecdotes. In 1975 the president was shot at twice in less than one month. Why wasn't 1975 the lowpoint of American civilityhttps://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1010918506534178818 …
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Replying to @mtracey
You're generally right, and
@hradzka's reviews of "Days of Rage" supports your point. But@NateSilver538 also has a point in that a) the political classes are less civil to each other than they've been since WW2, and b) ordinary non-extremist Americans are also.1 reply 1 retweet 1 like -
I'm not sure how you justify the statement, "the political classes are less civil to each other than they've been since WW2" without relying on anecdote.
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The plural of "anecdote" *is* "data". Having been around in the Reagan years, I think it's clear that the political class really is less civil now (especially as Trump and his supporters reply in kind), even though the policy differences may have been greater then.
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I don't discount the utility of anecdote. I just don't necessarily trust the extrapolation from anecdote to data, which people are so inclined to make.
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