Jeannie a Kaplan, a former member of the Denver school board, raises a sad question on her blog: when and how did America become a land of Me-First and Meanness? Surely this was not what the Founders intended.

She writes:

“When did it become acceptable for Americans to be so overtly MEAN to one another and to deMEAN one another? When I first thought of the MEANING of America in the early part of this century I thought this nastiness reared its ugly head under Bush/Cheney. But as the years have passed, I now believe the overt MEANness and the tacit approval of saying hurtful things started in 1994 with Newt Gingrich’s Contract with America, so it should come as no real surprise that Newt Gingrich has been supporting Donald Trump and his ugly view of America. Disparaging public servants became acceptable and even the norm. Not long afterward this Contract, the shameful behavior we are witnessing today seeped into our everyday lives. The advent and expansion of the internet and email and texting and twitter have all added to our willingness and ability to attack one another verbally. The anonymity and the impersonal nature of electronic communications allow people to say things many would never utter face to face. The culmination of this can be seen daily, hourly, minute by minute in the behavior and words of the Republican Presidential nominee. The nominee bullies, he lies, he threatens, he name calls using jargon few would ever use privately, let alone publicly, language that no national figure should ever use and before him did ever use. The nominee has done this from the safety of his tweets, rarely facing his targets personally. Somehow he has given Americans tacit approval to deMEAN each other, express hatred and bigotry toward each other, and even threaten each other with physical violence. He has become a poster child for MEANness and much, much more as he now threatens to undermine the cornerstone of our democracy, our election process itself.

“I cannot fully explain these occurrences. Our Founding Fathers would not recognize the crass discourse we are witnessing today. They worked tirelessly to collaborate, unite and adopt those 4543 words. One can obviously argue about equity, justice, tranquility, liberty for whom. But I do believe they hoped this new experiment called America would increase everyone’s opportunities for equity, justice, tranquility and liberty. Their hope was not to increase MEANness and ME –ism. It was not to deMEAN others, but rather to produce a country where democracy prevailed and where people would treat each other as they would like to be treated. In the words of Khzir Khan, “We can’t solve our problems by building walls and sowing division. We are stronger together.”