It’s More Complicated Than That

The MAGA movement is anything but conservative–and that assertion is supported by the number of genuine conservatives who identify as “Never Trumpers.” 

One of my favorites in that group is David French, whom I often cite on this blog. French self-identfies as an Evangelical Christian; he is also a lawyer who respects the rule of law, who understands that policy is complicated, and who recognizes that simplistic answers are almost always counterproductive.

French recently had a lengthy column in the New York Times on populism, in which he made a number of trenchant, important observations. I encourage you to click through and read the whole essay, but I particularly want to focus on a few key points. 

French began by rebutting a comment by the odious Steve Bannon to the effect that Americans really haven’t examined Trump’s populism. French finds that laughable; as he says, there have been countless focus groups of Trump voters, numerous “man-on-the-street” interviews and interviews with supporters at Trump rallies. Anyone who follows politics has read books, watched documentaries and listened to podcasts. “And if you live in Trump country, as I do, you’ll find that Trump voters are very eager to explain themselves. This is not a quiet movement. They don’t exactly hide their interests and passions.”

French warns that “Regardless of how a populist movement starts, it virtually always devolves into a cesspool of corruption and spite. And that’s exactly where we are today.”

Populism is never separate from this “voice of passion.” That is its defining characteristic. It begins in deep grievance. Some of those grievances can be quite real and consequential — such as when modern populist anger is rooted in fury over the Great Recession, long wars in the Middle East or shuttered factories in the Midwest.

Some of the problems, however, that motivate populists aren’t problems at all, and populist anger is rooted in something else entirely. Segregationist zeal fueled Southern populism for generations, for example. Xenophobia has always created fertile ground for populist demagogues.

But regardless of whether the grievances are justified, the real energy of populism is in its emotion — in its raw, unmitigated anger. It’s that passion that makes populist movements so vulnerable to charlatans and demagogues.

As French says, there’s a reason for that vulnerability– actually solving legitimate grievances with good policy is hard; inflaming passion is much easier.
 

There was no easy way to crawl back from the 2008 financial crisis. There are no easy answers in the Middle East, despite Trump’s faith in coastal real estate development in Gaza. The reasons for the loss of Midwest manufacturing jobs go far beyond the trade deals that “they” inflicted on “us.”

So populist politicians lean on the passion, reflecting populist anger back at the public. “The shared emotional connection delivers a singular message: I am your champion, and you are my legions.”

Populism may not place a high premium on honesty, but it is all about authenticity. Virtually every Trump voter I know loves that he speaks his mind and says what other people are thinking but are too afraid to say. 

The most effective populist tactics, or course, are deflection and racism: anything that goes wrong is “their” fault.

When the elected populists don’t fix everything (because they can’t), they lean back on their shared emotional bond to avoid accountability or consequences. After all, in the never-ending battle of us versus them, one can always blame the other side for every failure and frustration. At least for a while.

We’ve seen this clearly with Republican devotion to Donald Trump. He inherited a growing economy and maintained its growth for the first three years of his term. While he deserves a degree of credit for that continued economic success, Trump’s messaging was relentless — he had created the strongest economy in the world.

But what of the failures of Trump’s first term? Well, that’s a “they” problem.

The soaring murder rate in 2020 wasn’t Trump’s fault. That was all about B.L.M. and the left.

The confusion, incompetence and deception that marked Trump’s response to the pandemic were forgotten. The left was the real villain of the pandemic, with its school closings and mask mandates….So when America ended Trump’s first term deeply divided, with lower life expectancy, more murder, less economic growth, more deadly overdoses and higher unemployment than when he entered the Oval Office, none of that was his fault. All of it was due to circumstances beyond his control.

French reminds us that defeating populism doesn’t require defending the status quo. It does, however, require a polity that isn’t so consumed with hatred of “those people” that nothing else matters.

Comments

The Worst Threat

Rational Americans have been spending every day since January 20th freaking out as report after report details new assaults on the Constitution, the rule of law, science, poor people, minorities and women…basically, on the fabric of modern society. As justifiable as those reactions are, however, there is one assault that is easily the worst–because it poses an existential threat to all of humanity. As damaging–indeed, as terrifying– as all the other assaults are, history teaches us that they will eventually be overcome. (Granted, not necessarily in our lifetimes, and not without a lot of pain.)

But that return to sanity faces an unprecedented challenge. Overcoming social and political dysfunction requires residence on a habitable planet.

The single most dangerous and damaging aspect of the MAGA movement is its refusal to occupy reality–a reality that requires co-ordinated efforts to combat climate change.

As Cass Sunstein has recently written,

With the deluge of executive orders in the initial weeks of the second Trump administration, an important directive flew under the radar. It requires the federal government to consider abandoning “the social cost of carbon,” potentially undercutting all climate policymaking.

That is a technical way of signaling something simple and false: Climate change is not real. If the social cost of carbon is treated as zero, then greenhouse gas emissions inflict no damage. Regulations that reduce those emissions have no benefits, which suggests that those regulations should be eliminated.

The social cost of carbon has often been described as the most important number you’ve never heard of. The metric is meant to capture the harm caused by a ton of carbon emissions, making it a foundation of national climate change policy. A lower value would justify weaker regulations, while a higher one would warrant more aggressive policies.

The MAGA movement is hell bent on rejecting science, evidence and reality. Whether MAGA Neanderthals believe that their God will protect them, or cling to the belief that fossil fuel companies’ bottom lines are more important than the lives of their grandchildren, or share the fanciful beliefs of the world’s Musks and Trumps that they are demigods safe from the possibility that ignorance and viciousness won’t bring us all down, the consequences will be the same.

And those consequences are inevitable.

Trump and Musk attack every structural barrier they encounter in exactly the same way: they declare that it has been “politicised” and “weaponized.” So the Department of Justice has to be turned into an agency directed by Trump against his perceived enemies, the press must be cowed into a “balance” favoring euphemistic coverage of Trump’s lawbreaking, efforts to overcome systemic discrimination must be characterized as departures from competence (a particularly ludicrous accusation considering the incredible ignorance and lack of relevant skill of Trump nominees) –and the science of climate change must be demonized and dismissed as some sort of liberal myth.

As Sunstein concludes after his rather technical explanation of the social cost of carbon, “climate change is real. No president, and no federal agency, has the authority to pretend otherwise.”

Americans are currently under the thumb of madmen so arrogant they believe they can defeat reality by the simple act of denial.

Rational people, of course, recognize that belief as insanity. It is one thing to fall short of compliance with global efforts to counter–or at least slow–global warming; it is another thing entirely to reject science and simply refuse to accept the undeniable and mounting evidence that is now all around us.  

The average global temperature has increased by about 2°F (1.1°C) since 1850. The rate of warming has increased in recent decades. Glaciers are shrinking, and the amount of Arctic sea ice is decreasing.  Sea levels are rising at an increasing rate. Rainfall events are becoming more intense. Snow is melting earlier, and spring is coming earlier; plants are leafing out and spring migrant birds arrive earlier each year. The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is increasing. More land areas are experiencing more hot days and heat waves. Wildfires are starting more easily and spreading more rapidly (as Californians can attest). Etc. Etc.

Trump’s insistence that none of this is connected is undoubtedly motivated in part by his close relationship with fossil fuel magnates, but the motivation is irrelevant. As he and Musk continue their slow-rolling coup, they are destroying more than the Constitution and rule of law. They aren’t just waging war on the legal and philosophical framework of the Founders; they are virtually guaranteeing that much of the Earth will be inhospitable to human life–and sooner, rather than later.

Musk thinks Mars will be a viable substitute. This Earthling begs to differ.

Comments

The Blind Leading The Blind

Assuming that we still have human civilization and historians a hundred years from now, the era we inhabit will probably have been dubbed the Age of Insanity.

Wherever you look, the people we’ve voted into power are pursuing “policies” that defy basic common sense. Here in deep Red Indiana, the so-called Second Amendment defenders–aka gun nuts–have eliminated all rational restrictions on the ownership of weapons. Are you a domestic abuser? No problem. Have you given friends and neighbors cause to think you are off your rocker? Hey, buy an assault weapon. 

Are you blind? Here’s your permit! I

f you think I’m exaggerating, the linked article will disabuse you of that opinion.

WhenTerry Sutherland argued about gun laws with family and friends over the years, he would often joke about whether  he — a legally blind man — should get a gun permit.

Everyone would laugh. Sutherland didn’t think it was possible.
 
“But eventually it kind of started weighing on me,” Sutherland told The Washington Post. “And I started thinking, ‘I wonder if it’s actually possible, and what would it mean if I could?’”
 
So last fall, Sutherland applied for an Indiana license to carry a handgun. He expected someone to stop him at some point in the application process, he said, or at least test if he could shoot at a target.

A few months later, Sutherland received his permit, as Indianapolis news channel WISH-TV first reported. He put it in a clear case and wears it on a yellow lanyard around his neck in hopes of starting conversations about Indiana’s gun laws, which he said are too lenient toward blind people. Sutherland hasn’t changed anyone’s opinions, he said, but some people have been shocked that he received the license.

Welcome to Indiana, where legislators regularly demonstrate that the only part of the Constitution they’ve read is the Second Amendment. (They routinely display total ignorance of the First–especially the Establishment Clause.)

And how are the geniuses in the Indiana legislature responding to the insanity of  the Trump and MAGA hysteria over (dark-skinned) immigrants?  Are they even aware that the U.S. Constitution makes Immigration a specifically federal responsibility?

Don’t be silly!

As the White House ramps up deportation of immigrants living in the U.S. illegally, many Republican-controlled state legislatures aren’t just complying with federal directives but taking additional steps to curb illegal immigration.

That includes Indiana.

More than a dozen immigration-related bills have been filed this legislative session, ranging from a bill that would ban children living in the country illegally from enrolling in public school to higher criminal penalties for immigrants caught living here illegally. But lawmakers have ultimately decided to focus their attention on bills that help police enforce immigration policies and detain people living here without citizenship.

The constitutional allocation of responsibilities is obviously irrelevant to our lawmakers, as is the fact that the U.S. Supreme Court has previously ruled that the public schools cannot be closed to immigrant children. Jim Banks–the ignorant and nasty Christian Nationalist who is perhaps the most embarrassing person Indiana has ever sent to the U.S. Senate (and that’s saying something) has threatened to defund the police if they opt to “stay in their constitutional lane.” (Indianapolis’ Police Chief–who evidently has read the Constitution–used that phrase in explaining why IMPD would continue to focus on crimes against the city’s residents, rather than assisting in terrorizing Brown residents.)

Two counterproductive House bills have been introduced by Jim Lucus, one of Indiana’s most deranged “Second Amendment” legislators (he also has a FaceBook page that makes Twitter/X look like a DEI site). His measures–which are moving through the process– add stronger criminal penalties to immigrants found to be driving without a license. Never mind that research shows such laws endanger everyone. They result in fewer trained, tested, licensed, and insured drivers on the road, compromising safety for all. (They also perpetuate fear within immigrant communities and create barriers to immigrants’ ability to contribute to our communities and the economy.) 

The MAGA animus toward dark-skinned immigrants is part and parcel of the central MAGA characteristic–racism. If you discount Project 2025, neither the state nor the federal GOP has advanced any coherent policy agenda. As Trump’s coup has proceeded and Musk and his DOGE techno-nerds lay waste to various federal agencies, GOP invertebrates express no concern. The only consistent themes have been concerted assaults on science and on efforts to be fair to those they’ve labeled Other: scrubbing federal websites of information, eliminating DEI efforts, and ejecting the immigrants who disproportionately pick our produce and build our houses.

This really is the age of insanity.


 

Comments

When America Really Was Great…

America really has been great–or at least, greater. Of course, a lot depends upon one’s definition of “greatness.” Donald Trump rather obviously confuses the term “great” with the term “much”–in his limited and twisted worldview, rich people are great because they have lots of money, celebrities are great because they command lots of attention, and countries are great if they control more territory.

So–in Trump’s mind, Elon Musk must be great because he has lots of money. Trump himself must be great because the media is paying attention to him (it’s irrelevant that much of that attention is highly critical–it’s attention!) If the United States “acquires” Greenland and Gaza, and takes back the Panama Canal, that will make America great again.  

People with more (and considerably more active) brain-cells tend to define greatness differently. 

Paul Krugman recently considered the “greatness” involved in constructing the Panama Canal, and the greatness–okay, intelligence– displayed by our decision to turn ownership over to Panama.

Yes, it was a spectacular feat of engineering. But even more important, it was a triumph of medical science and science-based policy. To build the canal, America first had to conquer yellow fever and malaria. This meant understanding how these diseases were spread, then implementing widespread preventive measures that ranged from isolating infected patients with mosquito netting to eliminating sources of standing water in which mosquitoes could breed.

The success of these measures was an extraordinary achievement. But then, for much of the 20th century America led the world both in medical research and in the application of that research to public policy. This one-two punch of knowledge and knowledge-based action led to an incredible decline in the rate of death from infectious disease.

Why did the U.S. decide to turn that “spectacular feat of engineering” over to another country? Because it was in our national interest to do so.

America gave up the canal, not out of a spirit of generosity or wokeness, but because U.S. occupation of the Canal Zone had become a strategic liability rather than an asset. By the 1970s changes in transportation patterns had greatly diminished the canal’s economic importance; its military value was almost nil. At the same time, U.S. occupation of the zone had become a flashpoint for anti-Americanism, and it was obvious that defending the canal against sabotage and potential guerilla warfare would be difficult if not impossible.

Of course, weighing the pros and cons of continuing to own the canal requires the application of intelligence to sufficient accurate information–a process clearly beyond the capacities of our egomaniac co-presidents.

As Krugman also notes, quite accurately, America’s real greatness–the attributes that have earned us the global respect and deference that Trump is busily dismantling–relied to a significant extent upon our leadership in science and medicine.

Now Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a crank who rejects vaccines in particular and medical science in general, is on track to become the Secretary of Health and Human Services. The National Institutes of Health have effectively been shut down. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have stopped releasing crucial data. If you go to CDC’s website, there’s a banner across the top reading “CDC’s website is being modified to comply with President Trump’s Executive Orders,” which mainly means purging anything that hints at concern over social inequality.

This country didn’t become great by bullying other nations (although we have certainly done our share of bullying). It didn’t become a beacon for the rest of the world because of slavery or Jim Crow, but instead for our constant struggle to fulfill the Constitution’s promises of liberty and equality. 

Donald Trump evidently thinks “greatness” requires picking on trans children, reversing the social acceptance and economic progress of women and minorities, and ethnically cleansing Gaza. He evidently thinks that scrubbing all mention of climate change from government websites will stop the globe from warming, that ignoring scientific facts of which he disapproves will make those facts disappear, and that being the center of attention means he’s important. 

Trump spent four years in the Oval Office and still has no concept of how government operates or what the rule of law means, or what American government is for.

We the People will never be able to teach him anything–he’s clearly incapable of learning. But we can–and must–disabuse him of the notion that he’s entitled to exercise unfettered power.

Comments

The Great Regression

We are about to see whether changes to the culture–changes that most Americans have welcomed–can withstand a furious and focused effort to take the country back to the 1950s (if not before).

The federal government is in thrall to a racist maniac pandering to his base of White Christian Nationalists. His minions and his “co-President”–the unelected Elon Musk–have scrubbed federal websites of references to inclusion and fairness, to a variety of minorities and any mention of climate change. They have waged war on America’s humanitarian instincts–choosing to begin their war on the “deep state” by terminating programs that offer food and medical care to impoverished populations in other countries. People are already dying as a result.

The war on “DEI” is just new terminology for the persistent war on racial and gender equality–much like the nonsensical, hysterical assertions that primary schools were teaching Critical Race Theory (a complicated legal theory actually being explored in a few law schools). Facts–as usual–are irrelevant.

Here in Red Indiana, our GOP overlords (who owe their dominance to gerrymandering–aka cheating) have “settled” a lawsuit brought by forced birth organizations by agreeing to open abortion records–violating the privacy of women who have terminated pregnancies. The Governor’s budget proposal has axed monies for the Commission on Women and Martin University, the state’s only majority-Black institution of higher education, and proposes tax “reforms” meant to cripple the governments of (Blue) urban areas. The VA is eliminating its gender neutral bathrooms…the list goes on.

It is anyone’s guess what will happen to the United States as Musk’s young techno-nerds attack sensitive computer systems and Republicans in the House and Senate prove spineless. (Here in Indiana, Senator Jim Banks is a known Christian Nationalist/White Supremacist ignoramus, but Senator Todd Young is even worse, because he clearly knows better but lacks the moral fiber to be true to his oath of office.)

Numerous organizations and individuals have filed lawsuits challenging the illegality and unconstitutionality of the Trump-Musk assaults. Whether adverse rulings will deter the felon and the plutocrat is anyone’s guess.

The larger, longer-range question is: what will happen when the forces of bigotry and regression come into conflict with the widespread cultural changes that characterize today’s society?

In today’s United States, during the last two or three generations, women, people of color, gay folks and others have made enormous progress and assumed numerous roles once exclusively held by straight (or closeted gay) White Christian males. Young Americans are used to working and living with diverse companions. Over 70% of Americans tell pollsters they support same-sex marriage.

Americans have elected a Black President. Black and Jewish and gay celebrities have millions of fans.

It is, of course, precisely that cultural shift that has so enraged and terrified the MAGA bigots who elected Trump. Their fear and hatred makes them a cohesive movement, unlike the people who comprise what I am convinced is the majority–rational Americans of good will. The existence of a media ecosystem constantly pumping out White Christian Nationalist propaganda has been enormously consequential in shielding the members of the MAGA movement from information that might challenge their prejudices.

Worse, traditional media sources have been far too willing to “sane wash” and normalize very non-sane and non-normal behavior. As a result, massive numbers of Americans have remained unaware of the threat to our governing institutions and social progress. Americans who didn’t see a threat, didn’t recognize the danger, also didn’t bother to vote.

We are currently facing multiple, existential threats: to efforts to curb climate change, to the civic inclusion of women and minorities, to public health, to government programs that keep millions of Americans out of poverty and assist suffering people around the globe, and to national security. (The changes being made to national computer systems are likely to allow unfriendly foreign governments to hack into critical information.)

Even if a massive uprising by rational citizens brings a halt to the worst of what we are experiencing, America’s role in the world has taken an enormous hit. Trump’s clown car of bizarre and unqualified appointees, his fixation with tariffs, his ridiculous announcements that he wants to take over the Panama Canal, Greenland, and now Gaza, his unconscionable termination of humanitarian aid, his constant threats of war on (nonWhite) immigrants–all have dealt a serious, perhaps fatal blow to America’s global credibility.

There’s nothing sane people can do about that loss of stature–but we can and must rise up to protect the progress we’ve made toward realizing the American values our Founders bequeathed us. We sure can’t count on the Todd Youngs of the country to protect those values.

Comments