Will Civility Save Us?

Years of acrimony and conflict in our national politics has unfortunately trickled down to cities, where disdain for civil servants — and each other — has had a chilling effect on the work needed to get things done. So what can we do about it?

Former Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed and former Philly Mayor Michael Nutter sat down with Diane Kalen-Sukra, a former city manager, current evangelist for political civility and author of Save Your City: How Toxic Culture Kills Community & What To Do About It — the perfect guest to explain how we can bring down the temperature of our political conversations … and what happens if we don’t.

“Incivility exists on a spectrum,” Kalen-Sukra said, “but it leads to mobbing, harassment, then threats, then violence, and ultimately civil war.”

“Has there been an inflection point over the last 10, 15 years, where you saw an uptick in incivility?” Nutter asked.

“And when we have a conversation about what happened,” Reed interjected, “The President of the United States has traditionally been the exemplar of behavior and decorum. Donald Trump opened up a tear in the fabric of our society.”

“There’s no question that our social fabric is unraveling right now,” Kalen-Sukra responded. “And unless we address incivility intentionally, it is only going to escalate. It spreads like a contagion. Because civility is not about being nice. It's about having the backbone to boldly speak the truth, even in difficult situations."

Also on this episode’s Accelerator for America policy segment, the mayors discuss the role of bipartisanship in these times and the importance of “keeping the American team together.”

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As cities go, so goes the nation!