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Last week, the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, said a lot without speaking a word. At the close of President Trumps State of the Union address, she calmly, deliberately and now famously tore her copy in two and tossed it down with a shrug, declaring her disdain for its contents with aplomb.

This simple gesture sent a strong message. Most speakers are expressionless during State of the Union addresses or they come close; Speaker John Boehner couldnt quite mask his micro-expressions of frustration during President Barack Obamas address in 2015.

Speaker Pelosi offered a cri de coeur in comparison, as she intended. The speech was a manifesto of mistruths, she said during a news conference two days later. It was necessary to get the attention of the American people to say, This is not true. And she succeeded, perhaps beyond her expectations. Violating congressional traditions to make a point is itself a longstanding tradition for good reason.

Republicans heard that message loud and clear, denouncing her incivility, accusing her of shredding decades of tradition and demanding her resignation. It was the most classless act ever conducted in Congress, Ian Miles Cheong, the managing editor of the conservative website Human Events, charged.

But was it? Not by a long shot; when it comes to misconduct, Congress has a long history. Congressmen have pulled guns on each other. Theyve shoved and punched each other, and smacked at foes with fireplace tongs. Theyve engaged in mass brawls, toppling desks, tossing spittoons and, in one case, yanking off a toupee. The most famous violence in congressional history is the caning of the abolitionist Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts by Representative Preston Brooks of South Carolina on the Senate floor in 1856, but it was not an anomaly.

Nor is Ms. Pelosi alone in violating traditions for all to see; it was far from the first time that members of Congress met alleged lies with bold displays of open contempt. In 1790, Representative Aedanus Burke of South Carolina showed his feelings with a flourish after Alexander Hamilton, the Treasury secretary, slurred the Southern militia during an Independence Day speech. Hamilton had said that Southern troops were dispirited and in disarray before the arrival of Gen. Nathanael Greene. Burke outraged and hoping to impress folks back home used the theater of Congress to have his say. Turning toward the visitor gallery, he declared, In the face of this assembly and in the presence of this gallery I give the lie to Colonel Hamilton. Onlookers were stunned.

Representative Louie Gohmert of Texas did much the same when President Obama discussed his health care plan before the House in 2009, waving a handwritten sign that read, What Plan? The things he was saying were certainly not true of the only bill we had at the time, Mr. Gohmert later said. On that same night, Representative Joe Wilson of South Carolina shouted You lie! at the president for a similar reason.

By far, the most skilled practitioners of this showy statecraft were Southern slaveholders in the decades leading up to the Civil War. Threatened by even the hint of opposition to slavery, they used bold public threats during debate to frighten their foes into compliance or silence, tossing off insults or dangling duel challenges to set an example. Faced with the choice of a fistfight or a duel or the humiliation of avoiding one most men backed down or held back. For Southerners, transgressing rules was part of the point; it was a show of power.

Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky used the same form of showmanship when he exposed the alleged whistle-blowers name during impeachment proceedings last Tuesday. Days after Chief Justice John Roberts refused to read a question from Mr. Paul that revealed the name, Mr. Paul did the deed himself. During a period reserved for impeachment speeches, he read his question aloud while standing next to a large blue poster with the name in bold yellow, endangering the whistle-blower and violating the spirit of whistle-blower protection laws in the process; although those laws are meant to protect informants from retaliation, they dont explicitly stop members of Congress or the president from revealing names. Tradition and ethics alone keep them silent.

Although not strictly speaking illegal, Mr. Pauls actions were wrong, and some Republican colleagues said as much, privately admitting that they probably wouldnt have done it. But for Mr. Paul, violating norms was the point. By exposing the name and getting away with it he was warning off potential whistle-blowers-to-be.

Did he succeed? We dont yet know, though the bar of success is low; prevent one potential informant from stepping forward, or even give one pause, and Mr. Paul has scored a victory. President Trumps public name-calling and bullying have done much the same, frightening people into compliance for fear of vengeance in Washington or back home.

Mr. Pauls stunt shows us the real power of such transgressions. Incivility is one thing; bullying people into silence is quite another. The former scores points. The latter potentially warps the balance of power between Congress and the executive branch, and smothers the protections that make government go. These are the sins that should merit our outrage, get us out campaigning and march us to polling places. The defense of our system of government demands no less.

The rest is here:
Whos Really Shredding Standards on Capitol Hill? - The New York Times