Crossing this line is worse than uncivil, and is no joke
In the face of more and more ominous signs that the President of the United States is inciting violence against journalists, what voice among Republicans has been lifted against him? In any substantive way: none.
Now that Donald Trump has crossed a line by tweeting a cartoon of himself physically bashing a CNN journalist, it is time for some high-ranking Republican to denounce this behavior as WRONG—not merely inappropriate or tasteless or even “loathsome,” as they are euphemistically calling it, but flat-out wrong, and not just morally but in the sense of a threat to the free press and therefore Western democracy (such as it is).
Administration spokespersons are asking why Trump detractors “can’t take a joke.” Well, it was a joke when posted on Reddit—probably as satire—but not a joke when appropriated by the President himself. Anyone who minimizes it has put himself or herself on the wrong side of an increasingly dangerous line.
Few readers of this blog would disagree with my point of view, but few readers of this blog would not be identified as a biased liberal. I am guilty as charged, since everything I read or hear about Trump is colored by my preconception of him as a callous and reckless bully. At times I may be “unfair,” but my unfairness pales beside the vicious partisanship engaged in by conservatives without compunction,
But liberal or conservative bias is no longer the point. The point is, to what extent violence or the threat of violence against journalism is being normalized. The dividing line between civility and barbarism is being steadily pushed in the direction of barbarism with barely a peep from Republican lawmakers, not because they fail to see it, but because they are quietly willing to accept it for fear of voter backlash from the easily riled Trump base.
Focus on Trump’s personality is mistaken: normalization of violent hostility is the issue
Conservatives scoff at the idea that Trump’s antics represent a direct threat to our institutions by Trump himself. And they’re right. They know that Trump does not understand how to use the levers of power enough to rise to the level of dictatorship imposed by such thugs as Vladimir Putin. They count on the fact that James Mattis or H R McMaster will rein in the President if he goes totally, violently manic. They are correct on the first count, and, sane people will hope, on the second. They are correct in that, for the present, checks and balances will insure Donald Trump and his cabal in the White House cannot trample on the Constitution. But their political timidity allows the creep toward despotism to continue yard by inexorable yard.
The Left’s focus on Trump the person is off-target. He’s a symptom. The danger is twofold: (1) The condoning of violence by the Right, explicit or implied, makes it increasingly acceptable. It’s an acceptability to be exploited eventually by someone more politically savvy and sure of himself than Donald Trump; (2) Taking the public’s eye off the ball. The Left’s emphasis on Trump and his rabid followers takes attention away from the deeper sources of the problem, and they are complex. I’m not deep enough myself to identify all the sources, but the irresponsibility fostered by the reckless use of social media is a major factor—it’s an irresponsibility that allows a cultural vacuum to be filled with hate, lies, and shameless distortions of the truth. Twitter has taken no responsibility for the acknowledged viciousness of the Trump cartoon—and that might be OK as far as it goes, but how far will it go in the future? What’s the next step—Trump depicting himself as a hangman, with Joe Scarborough on the gallows? Would outcry against it be construed as the inability to “take a joke?”
Many observers have identified the drift toward autocracy represented by Trump to be a bigger danger to American institutions than terrorism. But it’s naturally hard for the public in the political center to take their eye off terrorism because of its present and horrific dangers. The magnitude of its horror plays into the strategy of diversion in the White House playbook. And it’s working.
[P.S. on the “sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me” front, it’s reported that J.K. Rowling quoted George Washington: “To persevere in one’s duty, and be silent, is the best answer to calumny.”
We understand Washington had pretty good results with that approach]