Most people concede that incivility has reached epidemic proportions. In fact, many complain that the lack of civility has stymied efforts to achieve viable solutions to the nation’s and, indeed, the state's most pressing problems. Yet, despite the professed abhorrence that such behavior is also a bad example to children, nonetheless, the proponents using disrespectful and demeaning statements still won their respective campaigns. Is it because most opponents also arm-wrestled in the mud or that we have become inoculated to outrageous rhetoric?

I submit we have come to think that only the person who disagrees with our position is the distasteful culprit. Folks somehow ignore divisive comments from those whose views they support. It matters not that the candidates don’t focus on policy and contrasting solutions to actual problems, as long as the opponent feeds into the conclusions the voter already has.

Many folks blame President Donald Trump for the rise of incivility. He certainly has exacerbated the situation but he hasn’t caused it. The President finds a willing audience to his name-calling because he awakens the lurking anger of people who already hate certain groups.

President Donald Trump also draws others into the negative exchange. In a recent Washington Post article, a democrat activist stated that he, too, has resorted to verbal attacks since Mr. Trump and the Republicans are bringing weapons to the gunfight while he and his confreres have been bringing butter knives. He has concluded that he must degrade the Republicans as much as he perceives they do to him and his party.

Democracy, of course, is the real loser here. Certainly, our forebears fought with each other in unkind ways, yet it would take months for the slights to reach the populace. By that time the hulabaloo where it had originated had calmed down. Today, the internet has unleashed unbridled passions which support the party line at all costs. Nobody can deny that the internet turbocharged jihadism. Similarly, tribal politics, far often spewing untruths or half truths, encourage the “party” to ignore countervailing arguments and to abridge the rules to take power from the “enemy”. Anyone or thing is castigated as the “enemy of the people” as opposed to any discernment as to the validity of any other POV.

Now that the elections have concluded, does anyone find it strange that with elections being the quintessential exercise of citizens’ rights the roll-up to elections involved so much lying, exaggeration and venom?

If it is true that free societies depend on broad agreement to respect the rules of the game how far away are we from disintegrating? Any society with the right amount of polarization can lose its democracy. Indeed, if history is a lesson, societies like Poland suffered precisely that loss.

So, if your “tribe” won at the state or national level, you might want to think about whether you really lost: did you lose your sense of solidarity with this country’s ideals in the name of having your tribe conquer the other? The United States' greatest danger comes from within. Tribalism replaces unity. I think we are on the brink of a loss of the heart and soul of this country. Indeed, "United we stand, divided we fall" is more than a slogan.

Arlene Violet is an attorney and former Rhode Island Attorney General.