Dear Joe,
I appreciate the work that you do, but I’m having trouble with the idea of civility. I’m tired of being civil with people who aren’t. I have a number of friends who say that civility is a useless strategy to deal with the problems of our times. I’m beginning to believe them. But there’s a part of me that still wants to believe that there are peaceful and nonviolent ways to deal with what’s going on. I’ve had enough of the fighting and aggressive ways we are relating to one another. Any ideas?
Split
Hey Split,
I appreciate your dilemma. The issues you raise have been at the core of my work for decades. How do you confront a bully without becoming a bully? How can you respond with courage instead of becoming passive? How do you speak your truth in a public forum when you know you risk getting “canceled” or having your life threatened? How do you confront incivility without becoming uncivil?
It seems that the lack of civility has become mainstream worldwide. Whether it be at a family dinner, in political town halls, at protests or at work, the loud-and-crass approach appears increasingly to get the most attention. But, when I read between the lines in your question, I suspect that you have insight into a deeper set of truths: that a loud voice may not be a strong voice, that both sides can win at the same time, and that the need to be right may not be the best path toward finding common ground and new solutions to our current problems.
Why is being civil not working? I believe we are working with an outdated operating definition of civility; we need an approach to civility that invites powers like strength, confidence, skill, courage, resilience and assertiveness. These powers, when used in a respectful, balanced way, could help neutralize the aggression, lack of listening, othering, breaking and polarization that hampers our interactions. So, in order to confront the level of animosity and distress we are facing, we all need to revise and “upgrade” our current skills, strategies, fortitude and resilience.
The first step in this process is to let go of a condition I call “chronic niceness.” Chronic niceness happens when we hold an archaic notion of civility, complete with a “big smile mask,” refined niceties, and where our messages of charity, mercy, and inclusivity, may not be in alignment with our actions. For example, when you say yes but you should have said no, or when you say no but you should have said yes, you may suffer from this chronic need to be nice. And, when it comes to chronic niceness, we all pay the price.
Consider this: When you witness friends marginalizing others, your place of worship or political party justifying violence for their cause, or your social media groups and friends destroying someone’s reputation before considering all the facts – and you say nothing – you are contributing to the debilitating effects of chronic niceness.
When you let go of chronic niceness and the false sense of civility, you open to the fierce power of kindness. Let’s distinguish the difference between kindness and niceness. Niceness is an external façade that creates distance and gives us permission to justify our harms; kindness is a quality of the heart that requires courage, empathy and compassion, respects the dignity and value of self and others, and leads to actions of nurturing and protecting others. Kindness transcends our limited views of each other and has the potential to bring about peace, healing and reconciliation.
What if we let go of our chronic niceness, stepped into our highest qualities of openhearted fierceness, and called ourselves and those we encounter to our highest values?. We step into our fierceness when we stand face to face with our challenges, bullies and aggression with empowered vulnerability. We become both nurturers and protectors for ourselves and others.
Fierce Civility is the approach I use to learn these upgraded skills. It trains you to shift your viewpoints, habits and behavior so that you can:
- Stay regulated in times of high tension so you don’t fall into patterns of aggression or passivity.
- Determine your level of safety in every moment and set clear boundaries.
- Treat others as you would like to be treated.
- Hold yourself and others accountable to our highest values.
- Seek out results that honors the dignity of all involved.
- Collaborate to find solutions that include the needs of all involved.
Success may not be guaranteed, but pursuing this course of action may support you in cultivating the resilience, grace, patience, skill and courage needed to stay in the challenges, and grapple with the twists and turns of these encounters, with a higher probability of a successful outcome. This upgraded form of civility may be what’s needed to shift from volatility to lasting peace.
With fierce respect for you and your exasperation,
Joe Learn more about Joe Weston and his work here. Make sure to c heck out Joe’s bestselling book Fierce Civility: Transforming our Global Culture from Polarization to Lasting Peace, published March 2023.
To Ask Joe, please submit questions to: AskJoe@Fulcrum.us.
A view of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on June 25, 2026. President Donald Trump jolted Republicans during a fiery appearance at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, scrapping a housing bill signing ceremony and clashing behind closed doors with a party rebel who challenged him over the Iran war. Trump had been expected to sign the bipartisan housing.
Only Trump doesn’t care about housing
It was August 15, 2024. Then candidate Donald Trump stepped out of his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club’s columned clubhouse to a gaggle of reporters. He was flanked by tables of groceries and signs showing the rising cost of food. Also on one of the tables was a dollhouse, meant to represent the equally alarming rise in housing prices.
It was a speech about the economy, the single most important issue of the 2024 election cycle, full of promises that went right to the heart of Americans’ anxieties. While former President Joe Biden and then Vice President Kamala Harris were contorting themselves to posture a good economy that just needed more time to recover from the pandemic, Trump was preying on voters’ very real fears of unaffordable gas, groceries, and homes. It was obviously a winning message.
In that speech, Trump promised, “We’re going to open up tracts of federal land for housing construction. We desperately need housing for people who can’t afford what’s going on now.”
As of mid-2023, there had been a housing shortage of nearly four million homes, according to the National Association of Realtors. Americans all over the country were either priced out of buying new homes due to low inventory, trapped in their existing homes by sky-high mortgage rates, or facing exorbitant rent hikes thanks to corporate investors buying up rental properties. Americans needed help, and Trump promised it.
Cut to March of 2026, when Trump reportedly told House Speaker Mike Johnson, “No one gives a sh*t about housing.”
That kind of thinking may explain why Trump this week suddenly announced he was canceling a signing ceremony for the bipartisan “21st Century ROAD to Housing Act,” a housing bill co-sponsored by Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Tim Scott that passed the House 358-32 and was approved in the Senate on Monday.
Trump instead demanded Congress pass the SAVE America Act, his controversial election grievance bill that doesn’t have enough Republican support to get passed in the Senate.
It’s just the latest in a line of policy self-owns where Trump has seemingly intentionally made life more difficult for Republicans hoping to keep their majority. Despite midterm elections occurring in the midst of a blistering economy and an unpopular war, they were surely hoping the housing bill would give them something — anything — to brag about when they returned home to their districts.
And very much to the contrary, Americans do give a sh*t about housing. According to a recent survey by the Bipartisan Policy Center, a whopping 79% say the cost of housing is extremely or very important to them. Eighty-three percent say Congress should take action on the issue — like it just did. Eighty-nine percent say the House and Senate need to work together to pass affordable housing legislation — like they just did. And 63% say they would be more likely to vote for a lawmaker if they helped pass legislation to build more affordable homes and lower housing costs — like they just did.
There aren’t many issues that unite Americans like housing does, and very few bipartisan policy wins Congress can point to, and yet, Trump is holding that bill hostage in order to get his pet project — which doesn’t even have the support of his own party — pushed through.
If you’re trying to make sense of something so nonsensical, as I’m sure many Republican lawmakers are, it’s certainly sad but not actually all that complicated. Trump said what he needed to get reelected and then promptly abandoned his promises in order to pursue his own self-interests, even if those interests are bad for Republicans and bad for voters.
That’s just the kind of guy he is.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.