There are a couple of debilitating notions that go hand in hand with normalizing untenable developments in faltering democracies. History provides all the validation needed to confirm that, left unconfronted and allowed to metastasize, these premises prove ruinous and bear much responsibility for ushering in authoritarian regimes.
The first is equivalence. The idea that those opposed to and resisting anti-democratic forces are just as wanton and reckless as their opponents. This always relies on lies and distortions, which are propagated and given credence by a media component. Hannah Arendt, the brilliant historian and philosopher, who documented Europe’s abidence of Nazi Germany’s catastrophic agenda, observed that those who choose the “lesser evil” quickly forget they still chose evil. By relentlessly selling the proposition that both sides do it, the scope of outrage is narrowed, while the edges of normal are widened.
Every day since last January we see this at work. What was unimaginable behavior from a POTUS in 2016 is now no biggie. Yet, a multi-billion dollar multi-media operation continuously conflates what we have never witnessed or fathomed we would accept with Hillary Clinton’s use of a private computer server, or Obama’s statement that health care reform would still allow the same doctor. There is no distinction between either quantity or gravity of the behavior. Trump has publicly lied more than 3000 times since taking office, a breathtaking pace that any dictator would envy. Yet each time he is taken to task, the White House and his Fox/AM support apparatus cite the same several talking points their core take as gospel examples of comparable liberal dishonesty. Indeed, they say it so loud and often it leeches into the mainstream narrative. Many a time Chuck Todd has accepted such equivalence while supposedly grilling a Trump toadie about a fresh verifiable outrage. PBS’s Judy Woodruff seems hellbent on proving to Trumpies she is even handed. News Flash Judy! Devin Nunes and Adam Schiff are not equal.
Unchallenged, false equivalence will decimate the signposts which regulate our system and check criminal behavior. If we accept that, continuously lying about different Trump campaign figures’ encounters with Russian officials is no worse than Hillary Clinton using a private server, and then accept rehashing the very same proposition the next day when a sitting President threatens to fire an independent counsel investigating those connections, we strip away our ability to gauge events. That dilutes our appreciation of the harm overt corruption causes to the processes and institutions this republic relies on.
The other similarly destructive impulse is the visceral opposition to treating Trump and his wretched core as the crisis they are. The stability of our democratic process has afforded the luxury to compartmentalize politics from everyday life. Even during the upheaval of Vietnam, Civil Rights and Watergate we could be comfortable that the process was safe, the rule of law determinent. Johnson bowed out of the 68’ race, and even Nixon was not prepared to go to war with the US constitution. Trump provides no such comfort, and it’s anybody’s guess where he will lead the country to protect his position, no matter how precarious. Worse, most of the GOP seems prepared to abide him, come what may. Meanwhile, Fox/AM implores its viewer base to celebrate Trump’s worst behavior.
If this doesn’t constitute a crisis it’s hard to imagine what does. Yet there is a willful determination by many to neatly pack the drama into a “tribal politics” compartment and ignore its broader reach, actually ostracizing those who seem too distracted by it, and insisting that there be empathy for the nihilist tropes of “the other side”.
Of course life goes on, and we are fortunate enough that no emergency has yet occurred to impinge on daily routines. That said, so many seem determined to digest what they know is not normal, and insist it not at all alter their priorities, or penetrate relationships. The more unhinged Trump becomes, the more fierce this determination.
The overt chaos and corruption of this administration is only exceeded by the pathological narcissism and detachment of the President. This isn’t an opinion; it is an hourly fact. It’s not politics, it’s corruption. Trump plans to hold as many as three rallies per week, at which he will surely vomit all manner of seditious intent toward both means and ends of our democracy. Insisting he is simply a “side” in a political debate that should not be permitted to overshadow FB selfies and the girls’ night out, is abject denial.
Sixteen months into this Presidency we have accepted outrageous conduct that previously would have resulted in scandal too many times to count. And we willfully ignore a President who hourly threatens and attacks institutions he swore to protect. Presumably many assume the process will sort things out and we’ll move on. It will be compelling to see if their faith is rewarded, even as they appear fully reconciled to living with the alternative. BC