The Declining Art of Political Debate : How many ways can you say ‘You just don’t get it’?

“You just don’t get it.”

It has become our leading political cliche, even beating out “It’s the economy, stupid!” The phrase owes its ubiquity to its power and flexibility as a rhetorical weapon. It serves as a populist trump card, implying--usually without any evidence--that one speaks for the people. When accompa nied by a sad shake of the head, it can also convey a certain compassion for one’s political opponent. Best of all, it casts the opponent as not “with it,” everyone’s abiding fear since adolescence.

One of the earliest appearances of the phrase was during the Anita F. Hill-Clarence Thomas hearings: The 14 white men on the Senate Judiciary Committee “just didn’t get it.” Many said Dan Quayle’s ill-fated attack on Murphy Brown’s single parenthood showed that the then-vice president didn’t get it. Quayle’s reply: “Hollywood just doesn’t get it.” Zoe Baird and her Administration sponsors didn’t “get” the ramifications of her nanny problem. Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) even says President Bill Clinton “doesn’t get it” when he proposes new government spending. Increasingly, it is used to describe virtually anybody with whom one disagrees.

However rhetorically effective, “getting it” is actually emblematic of much that is wrong with today’s political dialogue and debate. Arguments often seem designed to stigmatize those who disagree, to shame or embarrass the opposition rather than refute its arguments. The purpose is to end or prevent debate, not open it up. Most fundamentally, it represents an abandonment of what should lie at the heart of political discourse: persuasion of those who now disagree, or don’t yet agree. No one seems interested in trying to help anyone else “get it.”

There is nothing wrong, or new, in believing one’s own position is fairer, more realistic or just smarter than the opposition’s. But “getting it” suggests something more: possession of a special wisdom denied to others. This sacred knowledge comes in both liberal and conservative versions. Liberals claim a monopoly on racial and sexual “sensitivity;” conservatives on respect for “traditional values.”

This could have its roots in America’s sectarian Protestant culture. It’s another version of the search for personal salvation--instead of being “saved,” you “get it.” Indeed, one of the early uses of the phrase was in the EST self-actualization movement. Participants were not allowed to leave a seminar until they “got it”--the New Age equivalent of being saved.

But politics is better likened to missionary work than to the search for a personal state of grace. The priority isn’t--or shouldn’t be--one’s own correctness (sanctity), but winning others over to your viewpoint. That’s how political minorities grow to become majorities, creating the possibility of change and progress.

The new style of political discourse isn’t likely to accomplish that. Instead, it obliterates the essential distinction between a point of view and objective “knowledge.” Differing opinions thus become “ignorance.” Persuasion is meaningless--the task, instead, is “education.” The breathtaking arrogance of such an approach pushes away, rather than attracts, benighted souls who don’t agree. Moreover, it encourages intellectual laziness on the part of the “enlightened.” If a position’s correctness cannot be doubted, it also need not be explained or defended. Basic argumentation skills atrophy.

Consider the Hill-Thomas hearings. Hill’s moving testimony may well have forced some men to re-examine their views on appropriate sexual behavior. The similar stories many heard from their wives, girlfriends and mothers in the days that followed certainly had that effect. But it’s hard to believe the dozens of they-just-don’t-get-it style statements issued at the time by feminist organizations and leaders changed a single opinion.

Contrast today’s alternately sanctimonious and shrill rhetoric with this 1869 call for women’s legal equality: “The moral regeneration of mankind will only really commence when the most fundamental of the social relations (marriage) is placed under the rule of equal justice, and when human beings learn to cultivate their strongest sympathy with an equal in rights and in cultivation” The idea that political equality must rest on equality in personal relations is not new. A century ago, John Stuart Mill “got it” and tried to persuade other men as well.

Persuasion depends, mostly, on finding common values. To persuade someone of a view not already held, you must link it to some other argument or value shared by both parties. But today’s political debate largely forsakes appeals to common values and understanding. Worse, it often implies that there cannot be any such common ground. Certain people’s race, gender, age, etc. make it impossible for them truly to “get it.” Though currently popular with political liberals, this is an illiberal notion. Tell men that they can’t truly understand sexual harassment, and many will happily return to ignoring the issue. Tell whites they can’t comprehend the black experience, and many will decide blacks’ problems aren’t their concern. Those who want to promote equality, brotherhood and sisterhood must insist on the possibility of understanding one another--even if imperfectly--despite differing life experiences.

Sen. Bob Packwood (R-Ore.), ironically, helped show why this is so. Confronted with overwhelming evidence of his inappropriate sexual behavior, he cleverly conceded that he “just didn’t get it.” The political insult became a defense: You shouldn’t punish me, because I didn’t get it. But what didn’t he “get?” That married men shouldn’t pursue other women? That a man shouldn’t fondle a woman who has shown no interest? And if Packwood didn’t understand the actions were wrong, why did they invariably happen in closed offices or empty corridors?

The defense is absurd, but it is abetted by a political culture that gives up the notion of shared values. By saying those we disagree with “don’t get it,” we actually give them an out while attempting to demonize them--because we give up the notion of shared moral and ethical standards. Without that, there is no accountability. It may well be true that at some profound level, men cannot truly understand the experience of sexual harassment. But the part they can understand--what constitutes harassment and why it is wrong--is far greater, and far more important.

Historically, the greatest political rhetoric has emphasized not what we cannot know of one another, but what we can. That is how differences of culture, class and race are bridged. Abraham Lincoln’s famous declaration, “As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master” was in this tradition. Lincoln kept a predominantly white citizenry in the North united through a war devoted, in part, to ending slavery for blacks--an astonishing persuasive feat. He did it with the help of rhetoric such as this:

“This is a world of compensations; and he who would be no slave must consent to have no slave. Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves, and, under a just God, cannot long retain it.”

A century later, John F. Kennedy made similar appeals in throwing his support behind the second great chapter in the struggle for racial equality. In arguing for civil rights, he asserted that “every American ought to have the right to be treated as he would wish to be treated, as one would wish his children to be treated.” Invoking broadly held concepts of fairness, Kennedy noted that “no one has been barred on account of his race from fighting or dying for America--there are no ‘white’ or ‘colored’ signs on the foxholes or graveyards of battle.”

Today, much political debate takes the form of either “preaching to the choir” or berating those unfortunate enough not to share the speaker’s wisdom. But Kennedy was not speaking to white liberals and blacks, nor to white racists. He was addressing whites who did not necessarily support civil rights, but might be moved to that view--the people who most needed to hear what he had to say.

The appalling decline of political eloquence over the past generation has been widely noted--especially during the Bush presidency. In part, this reflects a wider coarsening of public speech. But it also has roots in this abandonment of the ideal of persuasion. Persuasion both demands and inspires fine political rhetoric. As our belief in the possibility of changing the minds of our fellow citizens decays, so too does the level of our political debate.

Today’s conservative and liberal movements, both prone to self-righteousness, feed these debilitating trends. The largely nonideological center of the electorate, neither spoken to nor for, grows increasingly alienated. And the mass media, with its preference for conflict and punchy sound bites, rewards some of the worst forms of debate. The result: a self-reinforcing cycle built on a cynical electorate and negative politics.

Hoping to stand against these trends is Clinton, who takes pride in being a persuader. He rests his case for gay rights, for example, on the principle that “we can’t afford to waste” the talents of even one American. Invoking a shared interest of all citizens, he attempts to speak to those who don’t automatically support gay rights as a matter of principle. His call for replacing welfare with real jobs appeals to many on both the political left and right, by appealing to a shared belief in work.

To be sure, Clinton knows how to tell a liberal audience what it wants to hear. But fundamentally, Clinton’s rhetoric is crafted to reach those who don’t already “get” his view--to take people from Point “A” to Point “B.” If Ronald Reagan was the Great Communicator, Clinton aspires to be remembered as the Great Persuader.

If he succeeds, he could do more than merely advance his legislative agenda. He could begin the process of resurrecting America’s political language and debate. That is critically important, because as America approaches a new century, we have no consensus on the great issues facing us: global economic competition, persistent budget deficits, the plight of the cities. If these are not quite Lincolnian challenges, they nonetheless pose enormous tests of persuasion.

For his sake, and for the nation’s, Clinton had better get it.