(un)civil discourse in politics

I hear all the time about how nasty politics has become. I think a little history will keep things in perspective.


1884 Presidential Campaign Slogans

Blaine, Blaine, James G. Blaine, The Continental Liar from the State of Maine - Grover Cleveland
Refers to Blaine's involvement in unethical business deals with the railroad industry and his behavior after they were exposed.

Ma, Ma, Where's my Pa, Gone to the White House, Ha, Ha, Ha - James Blaine
Refers to the out of wedlock child Cleveland allegedly had fathered.

John Adams
"Adams as a "hideous hermaphroditical character, which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman.""

"the infidel Jefferson" would mean "our churches will be prostrated, and some infamous prostitute, under the title of the Goddess of Reason, will preside in the Sanctuaries now devoted to the worship of the Most High."

"Andrew Jackson's mother was caricatured as a common prostitute that the sailors brought over for the benefit of the English Navy," he said, while Jackson himself "was called a murderer, a traitor, and mentally unstable."


IOW, politics has never been pretty....