Is it possible to be even-handed?

A series of minor scandals recently has me wondering if there are many Americans at all who are able or willing to treat their political opponents with the same respect and courtesy they expect for themselves.

Lately, there is a lot of selective outrage whenever some politician or celebrity does something mildly scandalous or controversial, with most people conveniently forgetting that their favored side does the exact same thing.

Let’s take the recent controversy surrounding comedian Kathy Griffin. She did a weird performance art piece in which she was photographed holding a fake severed head of President Trump.

The pushback was immediate and fierce. Griffin quickly apologized, but lost her job at CNN and the career fallout continues.

Let’s compare this to Ted Nugent, who invited President Obama to “suck on his machine gun” and uttered more racist and sexist comments about Obama and Hillary Clinton than can be listed, some of which are unprintable. Yet Nugent remained the darling of the Republican Party, invited often to appear on Fox News, appearing at campaign events for Trump, and invited into the Oval Office by Trump after the latter took office. I’m in favor of a lot of artistic license. I have no problem with anyone if they think Nugent and Griffin are both in bad taste or that they are both artists who have every right to transgress boundaries in their work. But, if you criticize one, you can’t let the other slide. Conservatives who are piling on Griffin should have been just as loud with Nugent. Liberals who make excuses for Griffin have no room to criticize Nugent.

Another example is the recent furor over a performance of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, in which the title character was made up to look like President Trump. In case you don’t remember, the title character of this play is assassinated on the floor of the Roman Senate.

This version of the play has been protested and criticized on national news shows. But, when the same play was done with Barack Obama in the title role? Not a peep. (It was also done with Richard Nixon, John Kennedy, and other presidents).

Of course, both sides might want to actually watch the performance before spouting off. They seem to have missed that the main idea of the play is that political violence doesn’t work and is likely, in fact, to backfire. It does not advocate assassination; quite the opposite.

That said, one should be careful even mentioning assassination (yes, I mean you, Johnny Depp) because, regardless of the party, the Secret Service tends to take even flippant comments rather seriously.

I know partisanship is higher than it has been in decades, maybe ever. But, if our republic is to survive, we must give our opponents every right and courtesy we expect for ourselves and our allies. That doesn’t mean we don’t criticize them, but it means whatever rules we believe in, must apply to all.

There is another concern I have regarding civility. How do we address it when the vitriol is coming from the president himself?

Not only did Trump invite Nugent to the Oval Office, then whine about Griffin (political hypocrisy is nothing new), but he himself called for violence often during the campaign. The “lock her up” chants represented a new low at political conventions, but it was hardly isolated. Trump encouraged his supporters to attack protesters at his rallies and offered to pay for their defense in court if they did so. He suggested that “second amendment people” could do something if Hillary Clinton was elected and appointed judges they disagreed with.

This worry is pooh-poohed a bit too often, given how seriously many of Trump supporters are taking his rhetoric. Calls for Clinton’s lynching were commonplace at Trump rallies, often with accompanying language I can’t include here.

In the education field, there is another worry, that we cannot uphold standards of basic human decency and teach children valuable character traits like respect. We have teenagers shouting “build the wall” and racial epithets at Latino students at sports events and if those in authority attempt any discipline, the students, and often, their parents, cite the president as an example. How can something be outside the boundaries of acceptable behavior if the president does it?

This is what we mean when we talk of normalizing hatred and bigotry. We need to push back, whoever does it.