Inversions

Reading the Republican convention coverage this morning, I noticed one reporter after another expressing bewilderment at the GOP strategy of taking all the worst vulnerabilities of the Trump record, and meeting them head-on by asserting the opposite:  Trump saved America from the pandemic, is the immigrants’ best friend, battles for the rights of women and minorities, has restored respect for America in the eyes of the world, etc. Those reporters need to study their history.

Spinning and rationalizing are the stuff of normal politics, and even public lies are in the traditional toolbox in circumstances where the politician is unlikely to get caught.  But the distinctive break from prior norms ­ – amply evident in Trump’s 2016 campaign and from the first days of his administration – is the continual assertion of the opposite of easily verifiable facts (e.g., calling the embarrassingly thin inauguration turnout the biggest in history, calling the GOP’s walloping in the 2018 midterms a “big victory,” etc., etc.). 

This shift from manipulative spin to aggressive assertion of the direct inverse of easily verifiable facts has long been understood to be a clear symptom of the transition to authoritarianism:  

 “O'Brien held up his left hand, its back towards Winston, with the thumb hidden and the four fingers extended. 'How many fingers am I holding up, Winston?’  ‘Four.’  ‘And if the party says that it is not four but five -- then how many?'”  (George Orwell, 1984, Part 3, Chapter 2)

 In 1984, authoritarianism requires a citizen to “reject the evidence of [his] eyes and ears” and makes common sense itself “[t]he heresy of heresies.”  Slogans are all unabashed inversions: War is Peace! Freedom is Slavery! Ignorance is Strength!   At rallies, people chant inversions over and over.  Inversions stream 24/7 from “telescreens,” as they do now into millions of households via Fox. Orwell was doing nothing more than fictionalizing the shifts to authoritarian rule he had observed during his own life and projecting how the rise of technology would increase, rather than mitigate, the risk.

So here we are.  Fox News, conceived by Roger Ailes as an ideological propaganda juggernaut, is “fair and balanced.”  The Mexicans, who of course oppose the wall, will “pay for it.”   When world leaders shake their heads in disbelief and horror at Trump’s latest blunder, he says they all called “to congratulate me.”  When North Korea becomes more aggressive following the rogue regime’s legitimization by the US, Trump has “brought peace to the Korean peninsula.”  Trump not only bungled, but exacerbated, the pandemic, and convention viewers are told he has been the “one leader” who “was right” about the virus and did an “incredible job.”

Inversions both train and test loyalty, the quality most valued by Trump.  Inversions, which make no sense, train the brain to reach its conclusions based on the authority of the source and one’s membership in the group.  Your capacity for empirical observation and independent judgment withers.  Faith in the party (or strongman, in this case) and loyalty become the only virtues.  And enthusiastic acceptance of the core inversions becomes the essential test of loyalty.   

On November 3, we will find out how many million Americans, looking at four fingers, will answer, “five.” 

The Platformless Party

There have been many historic turning points in American politics during the past four years, but few as astonishing as yesterday’s decision by the GOP to forego a platform.

Every four years since at least 1856 each party, meeting in convention, has published for the information of the American citizenry its position on the issues of the day.  The platform – in some countries it is called a “program” or “manifesto” – is a basic instrument common to all mature well-functioning democracies.   It states where the party stands, and the policies it intends to implement if elected.

But now it’s official.  The GOP has completed its transition from a traditional political party with ideology, ideas, policies and positions, to a populist movement built around a person.  The Republican convention yesterday officially resolved that the party’s agenda is whatever Donald Trump says it is from time to time. 

I actually admire the convention’s transparency.   It would be completely disingenuous to formulate, record and publish any agenda or policy positions that extend beyond the broadest of political platitudes (Make America Great, America First) because Trump would not in any way consider himself bound by any of it.   The GOP is telling us, with admirable frankness, that if we elect Trump the party’s policy or position on any particular issue will be whatever Trump decides makes him look best in the moment.   No ideology, principle, or policy coherence will prevail over the uninformed Tweeted impulses of the “stable genius.”  While the admission may be honest, it marks the end of democracy as we have practiced it in this country for two centuries.

We must treat every race, from U.S. Senator to local dog-catcher, as a referendum on this now-official position of the Republican party.

Today was even worse. Trump said:  "The only way they can take this election away from us is if it's a rigged election," a statement that precludes the possibility of the people choosing someone other than Trump as the next President. Autocratic authoritarianism is not a risk. It’s here.

The Nightmare Just Got Worse

Every public official who took an oath to defend the constitution should be considering today what actions are within his or her power to salvage the election of 2020 and, with it, American democracy. 

The President admitted on Thursday that he opposed additional funding for the United States Postal Service in order to make it more difficult to deliver mail-in ballots.  A major Trump donor (installed at the head of the USPS to replace an independent career employee) has orchestrated removal of critical high volume mail sorting machines.  The Post Office warned states considering mitigating COVID impacts through the use of mail-in ballots that they would face delays in delivery of ballots, making it impossible to know how many people actually voted or whether or when all the votes had been counted.   All this comes on top of a successful campaign by the President and Fox to turn the mechanics of voting into a partisan issue, with 76% of Republicans now accepting the Trumpist line on mail-in ballots and fraud.  None of this is hidden.  Larry Kudlow told CNBC that  “voting rights” are a “really liberal, left wish” and “not our game.”   Of course we knew this based on years of voter suppression efforts by the right.  Still, it is shocking to hear it said out loud.

If we have a COVID election without mail-in ballots, it will cause the election to fail.  If we have an election where mail-in ballots are used but not timely delivered by the post office, it will cause the election to fail.  If we are unable to conduct an election in which almost all the country has confidence, it will be the end of a 231 year record of democratic transfer of power (something we have long taken for granted, but which the rest of humanity knows is a precious gift, both hard to achieve and hard to maintain).

I call on all the living ex-Presidents, of both parties, to issue a joint statement calling for an end to efforts to undermine and delegitimize the election. 

I call on the House of Representatives and a broadly based group of leaders from every segment of civil society to call on the world’s premier independent international election monitors, the European Commission’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, to commence immediately to monitor the 2020 U.S. federal election and issue periodic reports.  

Trump’s ego demands that any election he does not win be delegitimized.  It will be satisfied by nothing less than the fulfillment of his prophecy of après moi, le déluge.  There is no damage to the country and its people that is too high a price to keep up appearances and feed his twin narratives of victimization and greatness.

With Trump, it is hard to untangle the consequences of his incompetence and his malevolence.   But at this point it doesn’t matter.  He has already vandalized the federal government and undermined most of the political norms that supported the success and durability of our political culture.   It seems he will not be satisfied unless the destruction of established institutions is complete. 

Cauldron of Crazy

If you really want to understand why America is now viewed by the rest of the planet as a pariah – its citizens denied the right to travel the world because of the incompetence of its government and toxicity of its culture – please watch this:

IMG_0407 from Andrew Colton on Vimeo.

Somehow, when the ingredients for this cauldron of crazy are fed to this woman by Fox, it is called journalism and sponsored by major companies such as Office Depot, Expedia, Bayer, ADT, Ford, and the like. But when regurgitated on social media and in forums such as the one in the video (Palm Beach County Commission), it is dismissed as fringe lunacy, for which the GOP and its media arm take no responsibility.

Although Trumpism is what precipitated the eruption of this toxic craziness into the core of our national life, it will not disappear with Trump’s presidency.

Although Disney, Papa Johns, and T-Mobil have withdrawn their advertising from Tucker Carlson, many other major companies remain as sponsors of Carlson, Hannity and Ingraham. It’s one thing to acquiesce to the free speech rights of these toxic voices, it’s quite another to fund them by the purchase of products and services from their advertisers.

If your mother were killed by the COVID resurgence in a place where the shut down was ended prematurely and masks were not required, would you patronize a company that sponsored those that spewed the nonsense that killed her? And under what moral code is it ok for the rest of us, who were lucky enough not to have loved ones killed by COVID, to patronize those same companies? Effective immediately, I am boycotting any company that still advertises on Fox.

I still have the concept of “negligent homicide” rattling around my brain from law school days:  the killing of another person through gross negligence, i.e., when a person’s death is caused by conduct that grossly deviates from “ordinary care.” That in turn often depends on whether the consequence of the negligent conduct was reasonably foreseeable (for example, the way it is foreseeable that you risk hurting or killing someone if you drive while intoxicated).  Every morning I read ample testimony that the relevant state and federal governments knew what was required to protect the people and chose not to do it (in many cases not merely due to negligence or “wishful thinking,” but for political reasons that render the conduct morally repugnant). Looking around at the current crisis in Texas, Peter Hotez, dean for the National School of Tropical Medicine at the Baylor College of Medicine, observed: “All of this was predicted and is predictable.”

Nightmare

The principal lesson of the COVID pandemic is one of preparedness.   We knew that a pandemic would happen, how it would happen, and exactly what we needed to do to be prepared.  Our failure to do so resulted from the usual stew of human frailties: denial, wishful thinking, avarice and failure of leadership.

We now face another potentially devastating threat, which we must not again ignore until it is too late.  In 2016 Trump refused to say that he would accept the election results if he lost.  2020 will be no different.  Whenever he fails or loses, it is because the system is “rigged” against him.   And he is now, almost daily, laying the groundwork to contest this November’s results.  It centers around a groundless but powerful meme:  voting by mail produces massive fraud.   All experts agree it is untrue.  No matter.  With the narrative pushed relentlessly out to the base by Fox News, 76% of Republicans now say in polls that voting by mail leads to fraud. 

So what are we doing now to prepare for the risk that the 2020 election will result in chaos, violence, and even the end of America’s 223-year record of peaceful transfers of power?  With apologies for ruining your day, here is the nightmare scenario:

Assuming that election night returns show Trump losing, he angrily rejects this result, asserts (with no basis) massive fraud, claiming the margin of difference is due to millions of illegal immigrants and a democrat conspiracy revolving around absentee and mail-in ballots.  He refuses to concede and launches a blizzard of litigation.   With no wiser heads in the White House to stop him, in the next 24 hours, his tweets awaken every flavor of far right paranoia:  if the democrats are permitted to steal the election they will take your guns, ban your religion, end your freedom, and preside over a chaotic collapse of law and order.

It is a self-fulfilling prophecy.   Trump’s base takes to the streets, invades state houses, and threatens judges.   They are met by massive protests in opposition.  The streets erupt in violent chaos.  Trump militarizes the response, telling the country that only he can preserve law and order. 

Although many judges quickly resolve their cases, scores of red state judges require recounts, extend voting, and order other remedies that delay the ability of state officials to certify the results.  On December 14, when electors meet in each state, scores of litigations remain unresolved and some elector meetings are enjoined from proceeding.  In some swing states won by Biden, such as Michigan, a hyper-partisan GOP legislature simply “finds” that fraud has occurred, throws out the results from contested urban and minority precincts, and votes to certify the electors pledged to Trump.  On January 6, when the elector results are due in the Senate, enough state certifications are absent or contested to deny Biden 270 electoral votes.   The constitution gives Congress the power to count electoral votes and determine the result.  Outraged, the Democrat-controlled House determines that Biden has won.  The Senate, still controlled by the GOP, either determines that Trump is the winner or votes to delay deciding.   

The President’s term expires at noon on January 20 and, pursuant to the Presidential Succession Act, if the office becomes vacant and a new president has not been inaugurated, the Speaker of the House becomes acting president.  

As of January 19, the Supreme Court has issued a series of contradictory and inconclusive 5-4 rulings.  Other cases have yet to reach the Supreme Court.  Having allowed the violence to peak to levels that have terrified ordinary citizens, Trump has declared martial law, pledging to restore law and order.  The move has widespread support. 

That night, the President addresses the nation, this time “revealing” a vast conspiracy by the “deep state,” aided by the Chinese and other hostile governments, to subvert the constitution and deny him the office to which he was elected.   Attorney General Barr, standing at his side, is “gravely concerned” and has launched a full investigation.   Trump says he has taken an oath to defend the constitution and this is what he will do.  He notes that if all the still-contested state elector certifications break his way, he will have won the electoral vote.   Let the process work, he argues.   Moreover, it is a time of national crisis, and he will not abandon the nation to chaos and violence.    All eight members of the Joint Chiefs were ordered to stand behind him when giving this address.   Two agreed and stood at his side.  The other six refused and were fired.

The next day, in a ceremony on the steps of the Capitol, Nancy Pelosi, as Speaker of the House, is sworn in by Justice Ginsburg as acting president pursuant to the 1947 Presidential Succession Act.    Trump tweets from the White House that this is an act of treason and orders the Attorney General to arrest both women. 

Outlandish?  Unthinkable?  My argument is not that this grim scenario will happen, only that it is a real risk.  

The best way to prevent it?  That’s simple: an overwhelming popular vote for Biden, and democratic control of both houses of Congress.   It is the closeness of the popular vote margin that would provide the necessary cover for those inclined to enable Trump.  Without it, they won’t dare.   And if both houses of Congress are controlled by the opposition party starting January 3, then many legal and procedural avenues will be denied to the Trumpists. Many of us have indulged in the narrative that our votes mean nothing in a presidential election, the result being determined by a handful of swing voters in the swing states. But this time around, that is manifestly untrue. Every vote really does count.

"Marines don't forget"

The pundits tell us that nothing will change hearts and minds among 2016 Trump voters.   I wonder whether revelations of his disrespect for our armed forces and estrangement from “his” initial team of generals might finally cause some eyes to be opened.

Until I read the insider accounts provided to The Washington Post’s Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig and reported in their book, A Very Stable Genius, I wasn’t able to connect the dots that paint a picture of a deteriorating relationship with the military, one of the key conservative/GOP constituencies.

You may have heard previously about what happened on July 20, 2017, but the Rucker/Leonnig book contains a more detailed, and deeply sourced, account.   In an attempt to educate the President about the basics of U.S. military history (more on that later) and the current foundations of our national security, the Joint Chiefs, flag officers and others assembled in “The Tank,” one of the most historic rooms at the Pentagon, almost sacred to those in service.   Hating any implication that he didn’t know more than everyone else in the room, impatient and bored, Trump exploded in a red-face rant:  “I wouldn’t go to war with you people.  You’re a bunch of dopes and babies.”  “You’re all losers,” he said, “You don’t know how to win anymore.”  Beneath portraits of American heroes, he railed against the forces under his command.  His complaint:  our military should charge for what they do and make money from the people we help, regardless of the fact that it’s in the U.S. national security interest: “We spend $7 trillion . .  Where is the fucking oil? . . . We should make them pay for our soldiers.  We should make money off of everything.”  So there you have it.   Bunker Hill, Yorktown, Gettysburg, Midway, Marne, Normandy:  all about money.

The flag officers, seething, stared at their shoes, unable to confront their commander in chief.  Pence, as usual, was frozen.  Only Rex Tillerson spoke up: “No, that’s just wrong.  Mr. President, you’re totally wrong. None of that is true.  The men and women who put on a uniform don’t do it to become soldiers of fortune.  That’s not why they put on a uniform and go out and die . . . They do it to protect our freedom.”   It was immediately after that meeting, standing in the hall outside, that Tillerson called Trump “a fucking moron.” 

When Trump (“without a plan or any apparent thought,” per his own special envoy), subsequently tweeted our withdrawal from Syria based on a single phone call with Turkish President Erdogan, he humiliated General Mattis, who had just assured our partners we were in it for the long haul, abandoned our Kurdish allies without warning, and put US troop in grave danger.   Mattis finally had enough.   The Pentagon leadership considered this an assault on the soldiers’ code:  never abandon a fellow warrior on the battlefield.   Mattis’s letter of resignation was devastating, asserting in the strongest possible terms the dependence of U.S. national security on our system of alliances and the need to be “resolute and unambiguous” in our dealings with countries, like Russia and China, whose strategic interests are opposed to our own.    A young marine guarding the Pentagon entrance often used by Mattis reacted to the news: “Marines don’t forget.”

Trump’s problems with the military are woven from a fabric with many strands:   

·      The military does not like being used as a political prop.   The generals were appalled when, as part of his campaign for the midterm election, he illegally ordered the military to the southern border to combat the “invasion.”  Pentagon officials privately derided the deployment as a morale killer, a degradation of the professional ethos of the officer corps (which understands that it must stay out of politics), and an expensive waste of time and resources.   The real purpose of the whole thing became clear when the White House insisted that the military produce images or videos of troops confronting the “invasion” immediately, even before the troops had been deployed.  “I can’t give people pictures of something that’s not happening,” the Pentagon responded.  The Defense Department source explained, “The urgency wasn’t on the mission.  It was on getting the pictures.”

·      Trump often refers to “my generals” and “my military.”  Business Insider and other sources report that many inside the armed forces find this offensive.   "The US military belongs to the nation, not the president. We're not his," a former Army officer complained. 

·      The military jealously defends the prerogatives of its own system of military justice.  Trump, prompted by Fox, intervened in the case of Eddie Gallagher, a Navy SEAL, and, among other interventions, reversed a Navy decision to oust Gallagher.  This led eventually to the resignation of Navy Secretary Richard Spencer, who said in his resignation letter:  “I no longer share the same understanding with the Commander in Chief who appointed me in regards to the key principle of good order and discipline.  I cannot in good conscience obey an order that I believe violates the sacred oath I took . . .”  General Kelly weighed in last week, saying “The idea that the commander in chief intervened there, in my opinion, was exactly the wrong thing to do,”

·      When Trump retaliated against Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman (together with his brother, Lt. Col. Yevgeny Vindman) for testifying truthfully in response to a mandatory Congressional subpoena (and had him escorted from the White House), I suspected the Army would not be pleased.  Given the constraints on active duty officers, it was retired John Kelley who had to defend his fellow officer: “He did exactly what we teach them to do from cradle to grave.”  

·      It’s one thing to fib in the course of politics.  It’s another to stand in front of the men and women under your command and lie to them.  During a speech to the troops during his visit to Iraq, Trump said that they had not received a raise in more than ten years, until “he” recently gave them a 10% raise.  In fact, they had received raises every year for decades, and the one Trump authorized was 2.6%, not 10%.   Did he think the soldiers didn’t know their own salaries?  You think this is fake news?  It was the Military Times (not the New York Times) that ran an article detailing each of the lies and misleading statements in Trump’s speech.

·      Article 133 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice hold officers to a high standard, and prohibits “conduct unbecoming,” which includes “acts of dishonesty, unfair dealing, indecency, indecorum, lawlessness, injustice, or cruelty.”  Examples of violations under this statute include cheating, knowingly making a false official statement, and using insulting or defamatory language to an officer.   From day one of the Trump presidency, it was a galling hypocrisy that our men and women in uniform had to answer to a man who almost daily indulged in conduct that would have gotten any of them discharged.

·      When Trump, without reason other than to penalize him for criticism, revoked the security clearance of former CIA director John Brennan, former Navy admiral William “Bull Frog” McRaven, a commander of the U.S. Joint Special Operations Command who oversaw the 2011 raid that killed bin Laden, couldn’t take it anymore.  He wrote a public letter to Trump, noting that few Americans had done more to protect America than John Brennan:  “Like most Americans, I had hoped that when you became president, you would rise to the occasion and become the leader this great nation needs . . . A good leader always puts the welfare of others before himself or herself . . .  Through your actions you have embarrassed us in the eyes of our children, humiliated us on the world stage and, worse of all, divided us as a nation.  If you think for a moment that your McCarthy-era tactics will suppress the voices of criticism, you are sadly mistaken.”  Up and down our military and intelligence ranks, the reaction to Trump’s attack on Brennan were similar to this one from a career officer:  “The disdain he shows for our country’s foundation and its principles.  The disregard he has for right and wrong.  Your fist clenches.  Your teeth grate.  The hair goes up on the back of your neck.  I have to remind myself I said an oath to a document in the National Archives.  I swore to the Constitution.  I didn’t swear an oath to this jackass.”  

Could the generals finally convince some Trump loyalists to rethink their support?  Gen. Stanley McChrystal said that he found Trump to be both immoral and dishonest. Mattis is sticking to his belief that retired generals should not speak out against a sitting President, but he’s dropping hints right and left about what he really thinks (and his resignation letter itself was searing in its appraisal of Trump’s policy).   And now Kelley – not just a retired Marine four-star general, but someone who, as Chief of Staff, worked with Trump more closely than anyone else – has decided to speak up.  

Trump’s view of the U.S. military as nothing more than mercenaries deployed to advance U.S. commercial interests is perhaps inevitable when you consider his complete ignorance of our military’s proud history.  On a boat en route to visit the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor, Trump pulled his chief of staff aside: “Hey, John, what’s this all about?  What’s this a tour of?” Trump had heard the phrase “Pearl Harbor,” but didn’t know what it was about or why it was important.   Kelly was stunned.  After plowing through 400 pages of insider accounts of the man, somehow the reader finds it hard to be surprised, even by this. 

Let’s hope that in November the Marines, and other men and women in uniform, don’t forget.

Overheard in the Gym

Two months prior to the election, in Schoolyard Lessons, I imagined the impact of a Trump presidency on children, who would be particularly susceptible to the ubiquitous media presence of a mendacious, vulgar, ignorant, bullying braggart in a position of respect, authority and celebrity.

But now it’s clear that the amplification and celebration of Trump’s appalling speech and behavior is warping the values and character of Americans of all ages.    I heard the following dialogue between two young men working out in a neighborhood gym on the West coast of Florida:

“You know, bro, you don’t make it in the world by being nice.”

“What’ya mean?”

“You gotta go after what you want and fuck everyone else.   You gotta say what you need to say; doesn’t matter whether it’s true.  You gotta do what it takes to win.   I mean, that’s Trump.  And look at him, he’s got it all.   He sees p**** he likes, he takes it.  Need to cheat and lie to make money, no problem.  He says fuck the IRS, only losers pay taxes.”

“Yea.  I guess.”

Both these young men were wearing crucifixes on chains around their necks. 

American is a land of contradictions.  We are the first nation in the history of the world to produce people who are simultaneously obese and malnourished.  Perhaps we also will be the first to host a majority who display the external appearances of Christianity, but whose inner characters are bereft of the Christian virtues.  This would be a distinctly odd result, as Christianity in particular puts a premium on works, not words, as the way to bear witness to the message of Christ.

Yet most Republicans, conservatives, and evangelicals have done, as Trump would say, a “deal.”   In return for political power and a handful of political objectives, they embrace an amoral monster and employ his sinful toolkit of deception, hate, ignorance, and prejudice.  The ends, they explain, justify the means.

There is no faith tradition nor secular ethic in which the ends justify the means.  When this becomes generally accepted in a society, no common moral fabric is possible.   Moreover, the normalization of immoral means can be reversed only by a cataclysmic event, such as war, or the passage of many generations.

Culture warriors on the right used to worry, with some justification, about the corrosive effect of profanity and violence in popular culture.  Where are they now?  Americans of all ages are bombarded daily ­– from the highest office in the land – with casual mendacity, intemperance, vindictive bullying, obsessive braggadocio, and a world view in which all human relations are transactional and devoid of moral content.  Even worse, this conduct is celebrated by the influencers and opinion-makers who dominate half of the country.  

Politics is transient.  Culture endures.  Re-read the conversation between the young men in the gym.  If this is the America you would build for your children and grandchildren, then vote again for Trump.

Give me your Norwegians

America before Trump:

Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

Emma Lazarus, from The New Colossus [poem appearing on a plaque on the Statue of Liberty]

America after Trump:

“Why do we want these people from all these shithole countries here? We should have more people from places like Norway.”

D.J. Trump, in a meeting about protecting migrants from Haiti, El Salvador and Africa, January 11, 2018

Give me your white, your wealthy,

Your greedy masses yearning for more stuff,

Keep the wretched refuse, please

Send me no black, brown, Muslim or Jew

Norwegians! For you I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

Poem that could replace Emma Lazarus if Trump is reelected