Category Archives: Tribalism

2020 General Election, Donald Trump, Republicans, Tribalism

Who do you believe? Donald Trump (+GOP leaders, Fox News, Levin, Limbaugh…) or your own eyes?

Image: CBS News.

Sixty-six percent of registered voters blame Donald Trump (either a great deal, 55%, or somewhat, 11%) for the storming of the Capitol building. The consensus of opinion is hardly surprising: Trump was there. He had urged his supporters to come to the Capitol on January 6 — “Be there, will be wild!” he tweeted — after spending months crying fraud after losing the election decisively to Biden (a “fake president”), trying to overturn the results in court after court, in appeals to governors, state legislators, secretaries of state, and others. He implored the crowd of his supporters on January 6:

Now it is up to Congress to confront this egregious assault on our democracy. And after this, we’re going to walk down and I’ll be there with you. We’re going to walk down–

We’re going to walk down. Anyone you want, but I think right here, we’re going to walk down to the Capitol–

And we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women and we’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them.

Because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong.

He meandered through a string of lies about the results of the election, made-up charges of voting fraud, complaints of disloyal Republican officials, and — despite his pledge to march with the crowd — drove directly back to the White House. The revved-up Trump enthusiasts took it from there.

CBS.
CBS.
ABC.

Only 28% of Republicans blame Trump for the sacking of the U.S. Capitol. Instead, a majority — 52% — of Republicans blame Joe Biden: 35% place a great deal of blame on Biden, while 17% say he is somewhat to blame.

Chart from YouGov.

There’s nothing in the water that Republicans drink that explains this perception. Rather, Republican voters are — unsurprisingly — listening to the national leadership of their party: the President, Republican senators and members of Congress, and most emphatically, Fox News Channel, along with conservative talk radio and websites on the right trafficking in alternate facts. And these sources have been on a raging campaign of disinformation for months, with nary a dissenting voice.

This is their tribe. And though it was folks at the Trump rally, waving Trump flags (American flags, Confederate flags, Gadsden flags) and banners (“Stop the steal,” “Jesus is My Savior, Trump is My President,” “Unleash the Kraken,” “Q”), and enthusiastically cheering Trump on, who marched to the Capitol, broke through police lines, smashed through doors and windows, and trashed the place — Joe Biden (the fake president), the man who somehow, someway stole an election (without leaving a trace of evidence), was responsible.

To come to any other conclusion contradicts what these voters are convinced they know. For certain. After hearing it day in, day out.

The message from the most influential source (apart from Trump himself) — Fox News Channel — for those in the bubble, is delivered slickly, professionally, with the look and feel of a genuine news report — with clear intent to deceive. When the actual news is inconvenient, shift attention to something else (even something manufactured out of whole cloth).

Kevin Drum offers a summary of the disinformation technique as mastered by Laura Ingraham:

In a nutshell, it goes like this:

    1. Introduce scary story about minor state legislation that has no chance of ever going anywhere.
    2. Invent out of whole cloth a segue into racism as a public health issue.
    3. Conclude that liberals want to lock up white people they disapprove of.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how the pros do it.

Editor’s note: more to come.

(Image above headline: ABC News.)

Donald Trump, Republicans, Tribalism

North Dakota Governor Burgum rejects senseless dividing line: “We’re all in this together”

“In our state there’s no requirements regarding wearing masks … and we’re all in this together. And there’s only one battle we’re fighting. And that’s the battle of the virus.

I would really love to see a North Dakota that we could just skip this thing that other parts of the nation are going through where they’re trading a divide – either it’s ideological or political or something – around mask versus no mask.

This is a – I would say – senseless dividing line. And I would ask people to try to dial up your empathy and your understanding.

If someone is wearing a mask, they’re not doing it to represent what political party they’re in or what candidates they support. They might be doing it because they’ve got a 5-year-old child who’s been going through cancer treatments. They might have vulnerable adults in their life who currently have COVID, and they’re fighting.

And so, again, I would just love to see our state, as part of being North Dakota Smart, also be North Dakota Kind, North Dakota Empathetic, North Dakota Understanding to do this thing. Because if somebody wants to wear a mask, there should be no mask shaming. You should look at them and say: That person’s wearing a mask because for them there’s additional risk in their life.

. . .

The first thing that somebody ought to assume is they’re doing it because they’ve got people in their life that they love and that they’re trying to take care of. And I just think, let’s just start there.” — Governor Doug Burgum

That a Republican governor would make these remarks is newsworthy because, “In 21st century American politics, truth is tribal.” And the Republican tribe — of Donald Trump and Fox News Channel — have contradicted and criticized the judgments of doctors, scientists, and public health authorities regarding the risks posed by a worldwide pandemic, whenever those judgments have conflicted with the Republican message of the day.

The message today is, Get back to work, go out and spend (and never mind the risks). But in the rarefied world of the Fox News on-air personalities and of White House personnel, best practices (as developed by medicine and science) aren’t rejected quite as cavalierly. Not behind the scenes and away from the cameras.

By late February at Fox News headquarters, the CEO had directed the installation of hand-sanitizing stations and the disinfecting of offices, and cancelled an event to pitch ad sales to Madison Avenue. Rupert Murdoch called off his 89th birthday party to keep himself and his friends safe.

At the White House, President Trump (and those around him) are tested regularly. There is even contact tracing and a requirement to wear masks. While touring the Ford plant last week, Trump explained why he wasn’t wearing a mask. “It’s not necessary. Everybody’s been tested and I’ve been tested. In fact, I was tested this morning. So it’s not necessary.”

The President tours a Ford plant.

The message could be: We’re all in this together. The priority could be: let’s put testing and tracing, and social isolation when infection is found, in place for everyone. The priority could be: let’s ensure that PPE is available for all health care workers, grocery workers, and the men and women in meat packing plants — for everyone being urged to get out and reopen the economy.

The public message of the Trump reelection campaign — Reopen the economy — has polarized the country, because ensuring safety has not been a priority. There is no plan to defeat the coronavirus or to protect the public (in either tribe). Instead, we get denial — from the Trump camp and Fox News — signaling to the base that there is no threat, or that the threat is overblown.

So, mask shaming has become a thing. In a world where WME — the white male effect — is a thing, where doctors and scientists and government experts are ridiculed, where conspiracies are pushed and hoaxes alleged, where anti-intellectualism is endemic, where public protesters (with and without guns) pointedly refuse to take steps to protect themselves and others (by wearing masks or socially distancing), in this world, the President seals himself off in the West Wing and protects himself when out of public view.

Anonymous photo behind the scenes at Ford.

As we approach the ghastly milestone of 100,000 deaths, the United States continues to lead the world in the number of infections and fatalities from COVID-19 — a testament to the failure of national leadership.

Governor Burgum, your heart and your head are in the right place.

Donald Trump, Off the Rails, Republicans, Tribalism

Republicans in Congress, FNC, and GOP voters stand pat as Trump’s ongoing failures increase the death toll

Yesterday, the United States of American became the world’s leader in known cases of coronavirus (even though testing continues to lag). As of Sunday morning, the number of deaths in the U.S. has doubled since Thursday.

The world’s greatest democracy still has no national strategy for combating the coronavirus outbreak. The reason for this failure is obvious for all to see: the President of the United States is incapable of competent leadership. The breakdown, which began in January (when “faced with the coronavirus, Mr. Trump chose not to have the White House lead the planning until nearly two months after it began“), is ongoing.

At his daily briefings he misinforms the public (putting Americans who believe him at risk), offers self-congratulations and points fingers at others; he vacillates and changes his mind from one day to the next (based on criticism he sees on cable TV).

Every status report and decision is from his perspective chiefly about him, not about the state of the nation, the well being of Americans, or pulling out all the stops to blunt the pandemic.

‘The federal government’s done a helluvua job. . . .

… I think we’ve done a great job for the state of Washington.  And I think the governor’s a failed presidential candidate, as you know — he — he leveled out at zero in the polls.  He’s constantly chirping and — I guess ‘complaining’ would be a nice way of saying it.  We’re building hospitals.  We’ve done a great job for the state of Washington.

Michigan, all she does is — she has no idea what’s going on.  And all she does is say, “Oh, it’s the federal government’s fault.”  And we’ve taken such great care of Michigan. . . .

We have done a job the likes of which nobody’s seen. . . .

I think they should be appreciative because you know what?  When they’re not appreciative to me, they’re not appreciative to the Army Corps.  They’re not appreciative to FEMA.  It’s not right.  These people are incredible.  They’re working 24 hours a day.  Mike Pence — I mean, Mike Pence, I don’t think he sleeps anymore.  These — these are people that should be appreciated.

He calls all the governors.  I tell him — I mean, I’m a different type of person — I say, “Mike, don’t call the governor of Washington.  You’re wasting your time with him.  Don’t call the woman in Michigan.”  All — it doesn’t make any difference what happens — . . .

You know what I say?  If they don’t treat you right, I don’t call.  He’s a different type of person.  He’ll call quietly anyway.  Okay?’

The country is paying an extraordinarily high cost for the President’s misrule:

https://twitter.com/Politidope/status/1244252490738143233

George Conway has Trump exactly right (as I have agreed): Trump is psychologically incapable of fulfilling the framers’ vision of the presidency.

But half the country — and based on public evidence, half of George Conway’s household — refuses to engage in a frank national discussion.

I am confident that Senate Republicans — most of them, probably, but certainly enough of them when added to all Democrats could have reached a 2/3 vote for impeachment — are well aware of the President’s incapacity. They refuse as a matter of practical partisan politics to acknowledge this or they downplay, no matter what disasters ensue, the magnitude of the harm to our country. So, who are we going to engage in this conversation?

The party’s base, egged on by Fox News Channel, overwhelmingly approves of Trump’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak.

If Trump were politically more skillful and not psychologically debilitated, this could have become a defining success of his presidency. He could have brought the country together à la George W. Bush following 9-11. He would have had to recognize the significance of the problem, rely on the expertise available to a president, and put the federal government to work coordinating a national response. Instead of denying or diminishing the threat, he would have had to speak truthfully about it — and reassured the public with a strategic plan to meet the challenge. (We can imagine, without a stretch, both of his immediate predecessors in the White House, one Republican and one Democrat, acting in this way.)

Had Trump been willing and capable of doing the right thing, he could have nurtured a larger governing majority than the Republican base. Trump’s self-interest and the national interest would have overlapped completely.

This was not to be. Trump cannot overcome his incapacities.

The devastation wrought by COVID-19 will be much greater as a result of Trump’s failures. Unless nature takes a fortuitous turn, Red states and Red regions will not be spared. Will his base stick with him come what may, adding “yet another grievance to their indictment of the liberal establishment” rather than hold Trump responsible? So far, those voters have not wavered.

(Map from New York Times.)

Donald Trump, Off the Rails, Republicans, Tribalism

How did nearly half the country — Trump fans and FNC viewers — get things so wrong?

A reporter asked me today why conservatives were initially so skeptical of the threat of the coronavirus. I tried to explain that one of the dangerous consequences of having a totally dishonest left wing news media was that most Americans discounted their hysteria as phony. – Newt Gingrich

This sample of duplicity and distraction, from a familiar Fox News Channel contributor, is classic Gingrich. The first sentence presents an issue raised by a reporter: “why conservatives were initially so skeptical of the threat of the coronavirus.” The second sentence goes completely off the rails. It’s a clinic on how Trump and Trump apologists obfuscate, distort, and deceive.

“I tried to explain,” begins Gingrich, the ever-tolerant professor offering instruction. Well, not exactly. Instead, in an act of misdirection, he hurls incendiary language, attacking media outfits seeking to inform the public, while completely ignoring the explanation in plain sight.

The issue is why conservatives have been ‘skeptical.’ Polling clearly demonstrates that there has been a persistent reluctance on the right to accept well-established facts. It is hardly true that “most Americans” discounted accurate reports of the threat from the sources where they get their news. A majority of Democrats and independents (who together outnumber Republicans) have taken the reports as credible. We believed what we heard and saw on cable and broadcast television and what we read in newspapers and online. It is a minority of Americans – base Republicans, Donald Trump’s most intense followers – who have been skeptical of the scientific and medical reporting on the coronavirus.

Why were conservatives – grassroots enthusiasts of Donald Trump – so thoroughly misinformed about coronavirus?

CNN and NBC, the New York Times and the Washington Post (to highlight a few of Trump’s bugbears), while fallible, share a journalistic mission: to find the facts and accurately report them. Since the news business is competitive, they seek to get it right, because – otherwise – their errors will be exposed by other mainstream news outlets. They will lose credibility among viewers and readers who wish to know what’s going on. We can say the same thing about scientists, medical researchers, and doctors: while they make mistakes, they try to get it right.

Conservative media do not embrace this journalistic mission (or the ethos of science) to inform accurately. Their job, in the conservative media ecosystem, is to bolster faith in their leader, to cast doubt on facts that might undermine that faith, and to attack and disparage anyone who contradicts the message of the day.

Gingrich, who changed the Republican Party, the Congress, and finally the country, by teaching other Republicans to insult, denigrate, and slander Democrats, introduced an era in American politics where one party (the GOP) has made the other party the enemy, where Democrats’ views are so far beyond the pale they deserve only contempt. Part of this project was to undermine independent (“totally dishonest left wing”) sources of information (from journalists, government agencies, scientists, and medical authorities, among others), whenever or wherever that information challenged conservative messaging.

In Adam Serwer’s words (“Donald Trump’s Cult of Personality Did This“):

Gingrich’s attempted indictment of the mainstream press is a backhanded acknowledgment that the conservative media do not conceive of their job as informing the public.

. . .

Fox News told its audience that the coronavirus was a minor problem their heroic leader was quickly resolving, while quietly having its staff follow the very precautions its hosts were ridiculing on air. The mainstream press didn’t force Fox News to do that.

Gingrich, offering pronouncements from Italy, separated himself from the skepticism of American conservatives, but he has had a staring role in bolstering the conservative media universe that has deliberately deceived its audience and in destroying confidence in independent reporting and inquiry that has created that audience. These conservative achievements, not mainstream media reporting, are responsible for the “dangerous consequences” he references.

Gingrich’s tweet presents a phony explanation for why conservative viewers and readers are sadly misinformed about a grave threat to public health.

Democrats, Republicans, Tribalism

Americans view Trump and COVID-19 through starkly different lenses: one Red, one Blue

The dire lack of test kits (in spite of repeated denials and broken promises by the Trump administration) continues to hamper public health efforts to contain the coronavirus. When asked (on March 13) whether he accepted responsibility for the shortage, Trump replied:

“No, I don’t take responsibility at all.”

Instead he blamed the Obama administration for an unspecificed “decision” that tied his hands (more than three years after he took office). Policy experts were baffled by the claim. (“To our knowledge, there were some discussions about laboratory developed test rules but nothing was ever put into place. So we are not aware of anything that changed how LDTs are regulated.”)

There is also a dire shortage of personal protective equipment, PPE — such as face shields, masks, head covers, and respirators — for doctors, nurses, and other medical staff. In light of this shortfall, medical personnel are even being instructed to reuse (generally single-use) N-95 masks.

When asked about the lack of safety equipment, Trump shrugged off responsibility and pointed to the nation’s governors:

“Governors are supposed to be doing a lot of this work. . . . The federal government is not supposed to be out there buying vast amounts of items, and then shipping. We’re not a shipping clerk.”

This is not leadership. But for nearly half the country, it’s close enough to satisfy.

Ronald Brownstein (“Red and Blue America Aren’t Experiencing the Same Pandemic”) notes that the spread of the coronavirus is playing out much differently in Red and Blue areas of the country: “That disconnect is already shaping, even distorting, the nation’s response to this unprecedented challenge—and it could determine the pandemic’s ultimate political consequences as well.”

National surveys reveal that Democrats express greater concern about the virus than Republicans, and attest to making more changes in their personal behavior in response. Democratic governors for the most part are acting aggressively to slow the spread of the virus; fewer Republicans (Ohio Governor Mike DeWine is an exception) are doing so.

Furthermore, the ideological disparity is matched by a geographical division. New York, Washington, and California — in virtue of the disease’s impact in their metro areas — have by far the most cases, though other states (especially those with large cities) are catching up. In Red states with large metro areas — Texas, Arizona, Georgia, and Tennessee, for instance — Democratic mayors and city councils are imposing social distancing restrictions.

Brownstein quotes Geoffrey Kabaservice, author of Rule and Ruin (a history of the modern Republican Party), regarding the urban-rural divide:

“There’s a long history of conservatives demonizing the cities as sources of disease to threaten the ‘pure heartland.’ That’s an old theme. . . . So that could be how it goes down.”

Kabaservice also alludes to the Republican suspicion of elites who comprise the scientific establishment and academia, professionals within government agencies, and of course the media (apart from Fox News Channel and other outfits within the conservative media universe).

We are seeing that on each side of the divide, folks are falling in line with the preconceptions of their tribe. Democrats look to scientific and medical authorities, acknowledge the reality of the pandemic, and accept journalists’ reports on Trump’s dissembling and his administration’s evident failures. Republicans are more likely to accept Trump’s messaging that diminishes the threat, to trust his efforts to protect public health, to endorse his rejection of expert opinion inside and outside of government, and to share his finger pointing at China, other countries, Democrats, and journalists whose reporting casts doubt on the President’s rosy view.

This exchange is all too typical, and will be viewed from starkly different lenses by Democrats and Republicans:

Peter Alexander (asking what he regarded as a softball question): “What do you say to Americans who are watching you right now who are scared?”

Trump responds: “I say that you’re a terrible reporter. That’s what I say.”

I think it’s a very nasty question. And I think it’s a very bad signal that you’re putting out to the American people.

The American people are looking for answers and they are looking for hope. And you’re doing sensationalism — and the same with NBC and Concast. I don’t call it Comcast, I call it Concast … for whom you work.

Let me just say something: That’s really bad reporting. And you ought to get back to reporting, instead of sensationalism.

Let’s see if it works. It might. And it might not. I happen to feel good about it. But, who knows? I’ve been right a lot! Let’s see what happens.

Donald Trump has never sought to appeal to all Americans. He consistently appeals to his base, while disparaging the other half of the country. (My first post in this blog referenced this dichotomy.)

And I believe Trump is in sync with his base. The grassroots Republicans who embrace the President come what may, don’t want to hear any message that detracts from the party line. They want to hear Trump’s rosy scenario.

And Trump could be right. Within a few months, we may look back at COVID-19 as something that didn’t have the dire, long-term consequences media reports have led us to expect. It may, like a miracle, just disappear one day, perhaps mere weeks from now.

Trump’s supporters are sticking with him, hoping for — even expecting — the best. He can weave, and dodge, and change his story as often as he likes. He can point his fingers at everyone but himself. He can make fanciful claims, deny observable facts, and contradict scientists and medical authorities. But his base embraces his authority and outlook. (“He doesn’t lie. I know y’all say he does. He doesn’t. He doesn’t.“)

And what if things don’t turn out for the best? Will their support waver? Will they stray from the party when it comes time to vote in November?

Don’t count on it (even though some may jump off the Trump train). More likely: the hardcore base, the true believers in Trump’s camp — the overwhelming majority of Republicans who voted for Trump in 2016 — will readily blame the Chinese, the Europeans, the Mexicans. They will point the finger at Democrats, liberals, elites — the folks who, in their judgment, look down on them. They will fault urban dwellers, minorities, and non-white immigrants who, in their view, don’t qualify as real Americans.

If things turn out badly, if COVID-19 hits their communities as hard as it is beginning to hit the Blue regions of the country, they are likely to add yet another grievance to their indictment of the liberal establishment, not to hold Trump responsible.

Whether Trump is right or wrong, whether his bet — playing exclusively to the Republican base — will pay off in November, this is the wager that Trump is staking his Presidency on.

It’s a wager he has placed before. He won the prize in 2016.

We have Blue America on one side, Red America on the other. The outcome in November will hinge on turnout. And perhaps, if things are close enough, on that mushy middle, that sliver of folks who mostly don’t pay enough attention to have a side.

An ABC/Ipsos poll reveals that a healthy majority of Americans approve of the way Trump is handling the response to the Coronavirus (COVID-19). Right now the mushy middle seems to be leaning toward Trump.

November 3 is a long way off. We don’t know how bad things will get or how long recovery will take. At this stage, though, the 2020 election appears to represent a daunting challenge for Joe Biden and the Democratic Party.

Donald Trump, Off the Rails, Republicans, Tribalism

Donald Trump & his Republican Party have failed to protect the country

The Executive Branch of the government of the United States is uniquely empowered to plan, implement, and coordinate measures to ensure the nation’s public health. The Trump administration has failed miserably to do so.

I agree with Senator Tom Cotton (circa February 28), “The single most consequential and valuable thing done to stop this virus from already spreading throughout the United States was when President Trump decided to shut down travel to China last month.”

Unfortunately, that action— taken January 31 — was hardly sufficient to keep the virus from spreading throughout the country. It would be bad enough if all Trump did in the intervening weeks (until his abrupt shift on March 16) was sit on his hands. Instead, for weeks in his every public utterance, he lied about the state of affairs in the country and diminished the increasing threat.

“We have it totally under control. One person from China and it’s going to be just fine.” (January 22) “We pretty much shut it down — coming in from China.” (February 2)

“You know, in April supposedly it dies with the hotter weather.” (February 10) “When it gets warm, historically, it’s been able to kill the virus.” (February 14)

“People are getting better. They’re all getting better.” (February 25)

“And the 15 — within a couple of days, it’s going to be down close to zero.” (February 26) “It’s going to disappear one day. It’s like a miracle: it will disappear.” (February 27) “And you’ll be fine.” (February 28)

“They’re going to have vaccines, I think, relatively soon.” (March 2) “Not only the vaccines, but also the therapies. Therapies are sort of another word for cure.” (March 3)

“We’re talking about very small numbers in the United States.” (March 4) “Our numbers are lower than just about anybody’s.” (March 6)

“It’s really working out. And lotta good things are gonna happen.” (March 10)

“And we are responding with great speed and professionalism.” (March 11)

“It’s gonna go away.” (March 12)

“No, I don’t take responsibility at all.” (March 13)

“They’ll all be great. We’re going to be so good.” (March 15)

“This came up — it came up so suddenly.” (March 16)

And Fox News Channel, the loudest, most influential voice of the Republican Party (next to Trump himself), reinforced the President’s message every step of the way:

News reports of the coronavirus, in the view of Fox News’ personalities week after week, was a hoax manufactured by Democrats to attack the President, an illness no more worrisome than the flu, an overblown brouhaha of scant significance. Dismiss, distract, diminish, disparage. Unfortunately, there is much evidence that the President of the United States often takes his cues from his favorite TV network.

This charade has been incredibly effective at convincing the Republican base. The rest of us, not so much. A recent Axios/Survey Monkey poll, which asked whom Americans trusted to protect them from the coronavirus, found high confidence in prominent health agencies:

Centers for Disease Control — 75%; National Institutes for Health — 68%; their state’s health department — 68%; their local office of emergency management — 67%; and the World Health Organization — 60%.

Trust in President Trump registered at 84% among Republicans, but only 20% among independents, 9% among Democrats, and 42% overall.

The President changed his tune (and his tone) on March 16, as he acknowledged for the first time the severity of the health crisis and issued strict new guidelines for Americans to avoid infection, though when asked, “Was there a change in tone?”, he dissembled:

“I didn’t feel different. I’ve always known that this is a real — this is a pandemic. I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic. All you had to do is look at other countries. I think it’s not in 120 countries all over the world. No, I’ve always viewed it as very serious. It was no different yesterday than days before.”

Much too late, facing an imminent disaster, the White House has advanced beyond denials and wishful thinking.

This awakening might have happened more quickly if Congressional Republicans had pushed back against the nonsense coming from their leader. Instead, they spread nonsense of their own (Devin Nunes); or whispered their concerns to VIPs, while reassuring the public and selling stocks ahead of the market disaster (Richard Burr); and then, when the consequences started raining down, tried to slink away to let others clean up the mess (Mitch McConnell). They unleashed the President when they (with the lone exception of Mitt Romney) acquitted him in the Senate — still focused on the next election cycle.

No one in the Republican Party wants to buck the President. They’ve allowed partisanship, tax cuts for their richest donors, and federal court appointments to trump the security of the nation. For more than three years, that reckless bet has paid off handsomely.

As we head toward November 2020, it may pay off once again. But the steep cost to the nation — to our health and economic well-being — of Trump’s misrule is harder to hide now, no matter what diversions the President, Congressional Republicans, and Fox News Channel cook up.

(Image from Los Angeles Times website on March 18, 2020.)

Democracy, Tribalism

Senator Mitt Romney cast a politically courageous vote and stood forthrightly behind it

In an era of maximal partisanship, Mitt Romney was a lone vote against his party and against a vindictive president. The GOP base – activists and faithful primary voters – stands steadfastly behind that president, ready to mete out punishment to wayward elected officials. And the conservative media universe, over which Fox News Channel reigns, stands ready to rally that base – with invective and lies – to back up the president.

There is no discernable political advantage to prompt Romney’s decision. He can expect ridicule, condemnation, and vilification from Republicans, payback from the President, even threats to him and his family. And while Democrats may praise him, they won’t accept him as one of their own. As Romney has noted more than once, he has no followers in the GOP. He is standing alone and, apart from personal conviction that he is doing the right thing, there is little upside of any kind (other than serving as an example to his children and possibly gaining the distant recognition of history: neither significant motivators for U.S. senators).

Unlike most Republican senators, he may be able to weather opposition in Utah, which has had considerable affection for Romney and where Trump is less popular than in other deep red states. And he has the wisdom and perspective to understand that failing to win reelection, if he chooses to run again and loses, is hardly the end of the world. But it is undeniable that Senator Romney did not decide to condemn Trump’s shakedown of Ukraine because of any personal or political benefit that stance would offer.

At a time when the Christian right holds sway over a political party, while embracing a man whose life, character, speech, and actions are antithetical to the message of the Gospels, few Senators (in deciding to fall in line behind the President) invoked principles that in any respect conflicted with the political expediency of the moment.

Mitt Romney did so. And we have every reason – based on his life, character, speech, and actions – to take him at his word that he acted out of faith and conviction, that he made his decision because of a fundamental belief that it was the right thing to do for the constitution and the country.

The reason his statement reads in places like a condemnation of other prominent Republican senators is because he has articulated in a straightforward way the facts of the case and the principles behind his decision. This is another reason to praise him: he could have shrugged off making a candid statement and, like so many other Republicans, essentially invented a more convenient, palatable cover story – pulling his punches to de-emphasize Trump’s egregious misconduct. He didn’t. He spoke clearly and forthrightly.

In casting the biggest vote of his life, Mitt Romney’s decision was politically courageous. That’s as commendable as it is surprising and rare.  

Donald Trump, Tribalism

Trump’s legal wizards argue that abuse of power is not impeachable conduct

“The Articles of Impeachment … are a dangerous attack on the right of the American people to freely choose their President.” A “brazen and unlawful attempt to overturn … the 2016 election” and a “highly partisan and reckless obsession,” the “Articles … are constitutionally invalid on their face.”

They fail to allege any crime or violation of the law whatsoever, let alone “high Crimes and Misdemeanors,” as required by the Constitution. They are the result of a lawless process that violated basic due process and fundamental fairness. Nothing in these articles could permit even beginning to consider removing a duly elected President or warrant nullifying an election and subverting the will of the American people.

So Jay Alan Sekulow and Pat A. Cipollone attest (“Answer of President Donald J. Trump“; all quotations from page 1 of the six-page brief). While I realize that this is political pamphleteering, not strictly the practice of law, it is a breathtaking response to the weighty, well-documented case – virtually uncontested in this defense by Trump’s personal attorney and counsel to the Office of the President –  that the House presents for the President’s removal.

The brief insists that a president cannot be impeached for abuse of power if he has violated no federal statute. While Alan Dershowitz, another of the President’s lawyers, did not sign the brief, he has made this case in a book on impeachment:

Assume Putin decides to “retake” Alaska, the way he “retook” Crimea. Assume further than a president allows him to do it, because he believed that Russia has a legitimate claim to “its” original territory. That would be terrible, but would it be impeachable? Not under the text of the Constitution.

Adam Schiff replies:

The logic of that absurdist position that’s being now adopted by the president is he could give away the state of Alaska, he could withhold execution of sanctions on Russia for interfering in the last election, to induce or coerce Russia to interfere in the next one.

That would have appalled — the mere idea of this would have appalled the founders, who were worried about exactly that kind of solicitation of foreign interference in an election for a personal benefit, the danger it poses to national security. That goes to the very heart of what the framers intended to be impeachable.

The narrowest reading of “high Crimes and Misdemeanors,” which Trump’s lawyers rely on, has been refuted again and again. It is hard to see how we can reconcile the view of Sekulow, Cipollone, Dershowitz, et al. with the concerns of Hamilton (and the men who drafted our constitution) with “the abuse or violation of some public trust,” as distinct from prosaic violations of the law.

Trump has famously boasted of his supporters’ extraordinary loyalty to him: “I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters.”

What if Putin decided to retake Alaska with Trump’s acquiescence? Would Republicans accept that? Perhaps Lisa Murkowski, if not Susan Collins, would find grounds to object. Mitch McConnell would certainly strive to deflect the issue if he believed control of the Senate were at stake.

There’s a serious point embedded in that counter-factual. Trump has welcomed the intervention of foreign powers in our elections (past and future). Is that in any sense less significant, if we are concerned with democracy and constitutional governance, than ceding one of 50 states to a foreign adversary? The facts, when push comes to shove, don’t matter to Trump’s Republican defenders. The bottom line is: what will the base accept (looking no further into the future than the 2020 election)?

There is scant evidence of a deeper principle at stake for Trump’s Republican defenders in the House or the Senate.

(Photos: ACLJ and Politico.)

Republicans, Tribalism

Nikki Haley, adopting a venerable GOP tactic, falsely smears Democrats on Fox News Channel

In yesterday’s post, I suggested that a well-worn Republican political strategy was to strip Democrats of legitimacy — to cast their points of view as shamefully beyond the pale. Today brings a fresh example of the technique, as reported by Philip Bump (“The Soleimani aftermath pivots to a key Trump talking point: Democrats are traitors“) in the Washington Post. He quotes Nikki Haley, formerly governor of South Carolina and Trump’s former U.S. Ambassador to the UN, speaking with Sean Hannity:

“You’re not hearing any of the Gulf members, you’re not hearing China, you’re not hearing Russia — the only ones that are mourning the loss of Soleimani are our Democrat leadership and our Democrat presidential candidates,” she said, using the by-now familiar “Democrat” diminution. “No one else in the world.”

“That is sad,” Hannity replied, laughing.

(We can thank Bob Dole for the ungrammatical use of the noun ‘Democrat,’ instead of the adjective ‘Democratic,’ to describe leaders and candidates in the Democratic Party. Nowadays, this has become the politically correct fashion among Republican talkers.)

I haven’t read Haley’s With All Due Respect, but since she is dissing the party leadership and candidates, I suppose she doesn’t include Democrats among those who are due any respect.

Hannity’s laughter reveals the insincerity of his expression of sadness.

As Bump notes, Haley’s claim is bogus. No Democrats have mourned Soleimani’s death. “What Haley’s tapping into here, though, is a swifter current than simply the last week of criticism about the strike on Soleimani. Hannity’s rapid, unquestioning embrace of Haley’s line was certainly on-brand for Hannity, but it also reflected that, to Hannity and many other Republicans, Democrats are seen as unpatriotic or, worse, traitorous. It’s not a new idea in politics, but it’s a newly powerful one, embraced by President Trump himself and by his campaign.”

Democracy, Republicans, Tribalism

When asked, Are you ready to get off the Trump train? “No one ever says yes.”

Sunday morning’s Los Angeles Times featured a column by Scott Jennings (“Why Republicans will stick with Trump in 2020 — even if they don’t love his behavior“), which offers an analogy to explain why Trump supporters aren’t budging. The piece begins with these words:

Recently, a close friend and fellow Republican told me he was “personally shocked at what the evangelicals have been willing to stomach” from Donald Trump. I’m not shocked at all.

My friend’s sentiment — a variation on the empty “if Obama had done this, Republicans would’ve impeached him” — has become a staple of Democrats and Never Trumpers. “Are you ready to turn on him yet?” Republicans are asked over and over.

No one ever says yes.

Jennings sets up the analogy like so:

Imagine standing at a train station in Louisville, Ky., staring at the schedule board. You want to get to Los Angeles, and you have a choice of two trains — one headed to San Diego and one headed to Washington, D.C. Neither gets you exactly where you’re heading, but there’s really only one choice as the alternative to San Diego is to go precisely the wrong way.

Even if the San Diego train sometimes hits bumpy tracks, and the conductor comes on the PA and says crude and dumb stuff, and there are people on the train you really wish would get off: It is still taking you basically where you want to go.

To the average Republican voter, like the passenger on that train, the destination is what matters.

Let’s acknowledge up front: the analogy has the virtue of accurately characterizing the intractable nature of Trump’s support. Trump’s evangelical base is no more likely to get off the Trump train, than I would be to board a train (or plane or any other conveyance) heading in the opposite direction of my intended destination.

But as usual with Republican talking points in defense of Donald Trump, the analogy – indeed the whole column – serves to divert attention from inconvenient facts, rather than to illuminate the consternation of Jennings’ close friend at what “the evangelicals have been willing to stomach” from Trump.

The first sentence references evangelicals. Of course, if we wish to be accurate, we’ll note that it is white evangelicals who are stuck on Trump (though the 2020 Trump campaign is making a concerted effort to generate the support of Latino evangelicals as well, especially families who have immigrated from south of the border – such as Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua – who are “leery of what they see as left-wing ideology.”). Jennings – who at one point offers fleeting acknowledgement that it is mostly men who comprise Trump’s base, not women – doesn’t clarify that it is white men who predominate.

That detail does not serve Jennings’ analogy, but it is surely of some relevance for understanding the unshakable support of a man who revels in insulting women, ethnic minorities, immigrants, and – yes – even faith communities that happen to lie outside the GOP base.

Other details in the fable also serve to obscure critical issues in the real world. Jennings describes a bumpy ride and crude, dumb comments by the conductor on the train. But the President of the United States is the leader of the country – of the whole country, of Americans of all hues and backgrounds and convictions – not just of his partisan base.

Trump has been insulting half the country since his campaign began and – after a tiresome year in office when pundits kept professing to see a pivot – it is now incontrovertible that Donald Trump rejects a unifying role as president. (Fun contrast: even in 2020, as impeachment looms and an impulsive Trump gambles with our security in the Middle East, the leading candidate for the Democratic nomination for president has repeatedly struck a chord for bipartisanship.)

Trump is a divider. By choice. That’s far and away more consequential than an obnoxious functionary hurling insults while collecting tickets.

Trump’s critics aren’t pining away for a “nicer conductor.” One might have expected believers of the Gospel (“Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself”) to have concerns for the Americans Trump has derided and threatened. But, among Trump’s base, no one ever says enough already.

Moreover, Trump’s talk – in the Oval Office, on the White House lawn near a waiting helicopter, in phone calls to Fox News Channel, at rallies before his fans, and in his Twitter account – is hardly the most significant reason to oppose him.

He is President of the United States. His words command generals, cabinet secretaries, intelligence and law enforcement agencies, and much more. He has separated children from their parents, cast aside allies who have stood with us for three quarters of a century, and embraced enemies who have contempt for democratic government and seek to do us harm. In every instance (and we could easily cite additional actions) his behavior is diametrically opposed to values and practices that Republicans and evangelicals formerly embraced – and not so long ago.

This gets us back to ‘the empty “if Obama had done this, Republicans would’ve impeached him”’ idea, and closer to the astonishment of Jennings’ Republican friend. That friend might well have taken evangelicals, his fellow Republicans, at their word when they professed the importance of personal morality in our nation’s leaders. Jennings’ reply: “To a Christian conservative voter, the individual behavior of an imperfect human pales against the importance of protecting human life.”

That anti-abortion stance and the fear of folks at our southern border seeking refuge are the twin issues that Jennings cites – and I agree that both are central, especially the latter, to evangelicals’ embrace of Trump. But Jennings’ rhetoric suggests a third motivator. A more toxic and pernicious factor, which explains, more than a couple of specific issues, why Republican evangelicals will overlook so much of what Trump does, no matter how antithetical it is to traditional morality and old-fashioned patriotism.

Jennings references Democrats in a handful of passages, disparaging the opposition party, not as citizens who oppose Trump’s policies out of conviction, but as cranks who harbor unreasonable views. A sampling of the language employed: “extreme tilt to the left,” “the wild extremism of his would-be opponents,” and “how the Democrats became so radicalized.” (He also demeans GOP opponents of Trump as “Republicans who make a living hating Trump” as though money, not principle, explains their opposition. I’m confident, though, that Jennings and other pro-Trump Republicans are amply rewarded.)

Virtually all Trump fans in Congress, on TV, and in op-eds featured in print and on the internet delight in demonizing the opposition party. Jennings – who employs mild insults in a casually off-hand way, suitable for the mainstream media (as opposed to the conservative media universe), is a master of the genre. While more subtle than Fox News, he gets the point across.

If Trump’s critics aren’t nutty, what are they getting at? The fierce opposition to Trump goes beyond rude, belligerent language. Alarm from small-d and big-D democrats goes beyond disagreement regarding conventional political issues. Jennings asserts:

Most of Trump’s governance has been what you’d expect from any Republican president (conservative judges, lower taxes, deregulation, an embrace of pro-life policies), and the wild extremism of his would-be opponents is causing some center-right voters who were lukewarm on Trump three years ago to feel closer to him than ever before.

“Most of” leaves out what’s most important to constitutional governance and the rule of law. It leaves out mutual toleration and forbearance as critical virtues for democratic societies (How Democracies Die). It leaves out the fundamental reasons for the intensity of the determined opposition to Trump: the obvious, undeniable ways that Donald Trump stands apart from every previous Republican president in the history of our republic. Jennings could count the ways as well as I could, but he doesn’t.

Instead, Jennings at once overlooks the reasons Democrats (and Republican Never Trumpers) oppose the President and places the opposition as beyond the pale – a well-worn Republican strategy.

That strategy has worked remarkably well. So well that folks who rely on traditional sources of information have found it hard to fathom how and why Republicans have gone all-in with Trump. Jennings’ Republican friend is “personally shocked” because – outside the conservative media bubble – Trump’s behavior (and the celebration of his behavior by the GOP base) clashes with notions of civility, respect, and good will toward other Americans. The two trains metaphor invokes an “intended destination,” but obscures the backdrop. Upon arriving, we get anti-abortion judges and strict border control, but also assaults on democratic institutions, and foreign policies that undermine U.S. security and American exceptionalism.

Why does the evangelical right wish to go there? Because they’ve been taught that Democrats are contemptible liberals/radicals/socialists. Because they’ve learned that the views of the opposition are outrageous and unworthy of a moment’s reflection. Because they have acquired the conviction that their political opponents lack legitimacy.

Democrats (and liberals et al.) aren’t the loyal opposition. They are the enemy.

And Trump stands against their enemies in the other party. Not so long ago Republicans regarded Democrats as fellow citizens who held opinions that were fit subjects for debate. Trump’s evangelical base dismisses this point of view.

Jennings’ parable of the two trains obscures what’s shocking about evangelical support for Trump, instead of bringing it into focus.

(Image: Trump Train on YouTube.)