I’ve been reflecting recently on old friends and influential mentors and mulling over how national politics have influenced the way we in Northampton are speaking to, about and past each other.
First, let me introduce you to Harvey Silverglate. Harvey was my first co-op (co-operative education) employer when I attended Northeastern University School of Law. His criminal defense and civil rights law firm first gained a national reputation for successfully defending Vietnam War protesters and draft resisters.
A few things to know about Harvey: he’s pretty close to a First Amendment absolutist. That is, the First Amendment says that the government “shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech.” No law. No exceptions. Of course, the Supreme Court has created quite a few.
Harvey also is an accomplished author and journalist. Among his books is Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent. That book argues that prosecutors no longer see crimes and charge the alleged perpetrators. Instead, they now select a potential defendant and then pick some crime that might fit.
Donald Trump and Attorney General Pam Bondi’s targeting, for example, California Senator Adam Schiff and New York Attorney General Letitia James substantiate Silverglate’s premise. What have Schiff and James done? They’ve criticized Trump. So now, more than ever, we must defend freedom of speech whenever it is attacked.
I respect Harvey. Over the years, I’ve also intensely disagreed with him. One example: Harvey represented John Eastman, Trump’s personal attorney charged in a nine-count indictment in Georgia with, in essence, election fraud — trying to have Trump installed as president after he lost in 2020.
On my radio show, Harvey explained that he was defending Eastman because he was asked to and because everyone has the right to a defense attorney, preferably the lawyer of their choice. That’s true, but, I countered, not everyone had the right to have him as their lawyer. We didn’t agree to disagree. We just disagreed. Period. Full stop.
It’s no easy matter to disagree with Harvey. And yet …
I have been musing about the “and yet,” as I’ve considered recent political fights in Northampton. My questions: have disparagement, distortions and personal attacks become an accepted norm; and to the extent that’s true, what are the costs?
Let’s start here: I deplore censorship. People have the right, subject to reasonable time, place and manner restrictions, to express whatever they want as they want when they want. And let’s further agree on this: under the free speech guarantees of the federal and state constitutions “whatever they want” includes not only robust, powerful and passionate speech but also extreme, unpopular or vulgar speech, name-calling and hyperbolic, mean-spirited and venal expression.
But just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should. Just because you can say something doesn’t mean your words are constructive.
Sadly, today in disputes in Northampton, calling for some civility in lieu of personal attacks often ends up with the speaker being characterized as politically naïve, a wuss, and castigated as the “tone police.” Showing respect and searching in good faith for common ground can demonstrate common sense and integrity, principle and resolve, strength and not weakness.
During Vietnam, the anti-War movement took the jingoistic, war-supporting death-inducing slogan “My country right or wrong” and reversed its meaning by adding, “When right to say she’s right, when wrong to make her right.” That statement suggests a good paradigm for local politics today.
Let’s recall when a supporter of Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain told him at a town hall that she could not trust Barack Obama because “he’s an Arab.” McCain responded that Obama was a decent person and citizen, his opponent with whom he had serious policy disagreements, but not his enemy.
Although such devotion to democratic norms may strike some people as quaint and irrelevant, I believe that when any presumption of good faith is replaced by an assumption of nefarious intent, the community loses resilience and fortitude. In both the short term and the long run, this Trumpification of local politics will cost us dearly.
Here’s some of my experience. I had intense public disputes with former Mayor David Narkewicz and former Police Chief Jody Kasper on critical issues of policing and privacy. I’m still convinced that I was right. Two things: throughout those fights, we’d talk. And notwithstanding awkward conversations and intense both public and private disagreements, I still believe that Narkewicz was a smart, dedicated and effective mayor as was Kasper as the chief.
Today, in contrast, personal condemnations such as “Why does that public official hate public education so much?”, creates a counter-productive, us versus-them binary that makes creative solutions all the more difficult to achieve.
The chief executive of, and legislators for, this extremely complicated $145.3 million/year municipal enterprise requires appropriate experience and knowledge along with the ability to work with others. Give me candidates who have these qualities, who understand that collaborative problem-solving will serve us well and that hostility and nastiness won’t. For these positions, solipsistic ideologues need not apply. We need municipal leaders who appreciate that we’re all in this together.
Bill Newman is a Northampton-based civil rights lawyer and co-host of Talk the Talk on WHMP. The preliminary election for Northampton is on Sept. 16.