‘Much of the politics we have today is strident and polarized and mean,’ says Lee Hamilton, a former Democratic House member who now runs the Center on Congress at Indiana University. ‘The fundamental problem, of course, is we do not show respect to those who are involved.’ Hamilton points out that while everyone pays lip service to the idea of civility, few will castigate a politician for being impolitic. Instead, the media always show some love for confrontation, while constituents may well reward a politician for taking an aggressive stance against another politician they don’t like.