My new TRB column, which like all content from the print magazine requires a subscription, is up:
The embrace of “civility” is not so much a diagnosis of the problems of public discourse as a reflection of them. The two parties present themselves as upholding the highest standards of discourse while furiously casting their opponents as nasty brutes. U.S. politics is coming to resemble a European soccer game, or perhaps a Duke intra-squad basketball scrimmage—each side more concerned with feigning a foul at the hand of the opponent than scoring points of their own. Washington has become a city of floppers.
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