The Sad But Unsurprising US Political Narrative: Ignoring and Whitewashing the End of the Rule of Law
Here is the headline of a story in The New York Times from July 4: "From Court to Congress to the Mideast, Trump Tallies His Wins." If one were searching for a perfect example of the absolutely blind insistence in the US on treating Donald Trump and his totalitarian regime just like we would treat any other US presidential administration, this headline would be in the running. The editor might as well have written: "Nothing new to see here, folks! Just wins and losses in the big game of American politics. And now a word from our sponsor."
What exactly is so bad about that framing? It is not that Trump has suffered big policy or other losses, of course. He in fact has gotten his way in recent weeks and months on a depressingly large number of matters, across a range of policy and governmental controversies. No, the problem is that the notion of "tallying wins" evokes the idea of someone having engaged in spirited but genuinely lose-able competitions and then come out on top. That is very much not what is happening with Trump.
How would one have described, say, Al Capone in his heyday? This example resonates especially strongly in the current moment, because Trump not only revealed himself to be a big fan of the infamous mobster during last year's campaign but returned to talking about the "great" mass killer in a bizarre meeting with religious leaders yesterday. Truly weird. But in any event, would a newspaper of any repute have written such a fawning headline while Capone increased the number of stores that were "clients" of his protection racket, drove his competitors underground (if not literally under the ground), evaded arrest and beat indictments, bought judges, killed witnesses, and so on? Big Al was in fact "tallying wins," was he not?
The comparison is apt not only because of Trump's strangely unembarrassed admiration of Capone. Trump's wins are being tallied very much because of the same strategies of intimidation and fear. US Senator Lisa Murkowski admitted just three months ago that "we are all afraid." The Republicans who made a show of trying to oppose Trump's recent horrible budget bill had their careers threatened, and worse. Murkowski and her Republican colleague Josh Hawley (along with others) were cowering so badly that they voted for the bill but then meekly said that it was a bad bill and maybe other people should vote against it.
Meanwhile, judges who rule against Trump are deluged with death threats. And as Professor Dorf and I discussed in separate columns recently, the Supreme Court is showing that it either is afraid to exercise its authority (because it is afraid to expose the fact that is has no enforceable authority) or -- much more likely -- is in the tank for Trump. That Trump has an illegitimately spawned Supreme Court super-majority backing his every lawless act is a "win" in the same way that winning a game in which one has paid off the referees is a glorious victory.
Yes, Trump is getting his way these days on almost everything. He surely views that as winning, but that is no reason for anyone else -- most definitely not the world's most prestigious media organization's news side (that is, not the editorial page) -- to treat this as anything but the rotten fruit of poisoned trees. Why would anyone go to such lengths to pretend that what is happening is somehow legitimate (though possibly-maybe unwelcome)?
It is time to talk about leopards and faces.
In the last decade or so, most readers of this column will surely have come across the meme in which a person shouts something like this: "Wait, I supported the Leopards-Eating-People's-Faces Party, but I had no idea the leopards would eat my face!" As far as it went, that joke captured something important about US political dynamics. It turns out, however, that people are even more obtuse than the meme presumes them to be. Although it is somewhat risky to extend metaphors, I think it is reasonable to say that what we are now seeing involves people insisting either that their faces are not being eaten or that face-eating is an interesting phenomenon that we can all find fascinating and discuss objectively.
The Times, after all, is living in a world in which its reporters are harassed and threatened with violence, with Trumpists constantly and grossly violating press freedoms, and so on. The Associated Press was immediately banned from the White House press corps for the sin of refusing to refer to the "Gulf of America," and they were replaced by sycophants who are not journalists in any sense. Even so, Trump is not "getting his way through the abuse of wrongly amassed powers" but is "tallying wins." How nice for him!
Unsurprisingly, Jon Stewart has also used his perch on "The Daily Show" to deny reality. In the eight-plus months since the election, I have mentioned his commentaries unfavorably quite frequently. (See, for example, here and here.) In his post-return-from-retirement incarnation, he seems intent on being the Democratic Party's in-house scold and thus the Republican Party's most useful apologist.
An especially egregious example of this was Stewart's commentary a week into the second Trump term. There, he decided to tut-tut Democrats for being too quick to call fascists fascists. This is similar to the "keeping powder dry" theory of the Supreme Court that I criticized two weeks ago, where I asked what the point is in continuing to try to maintain some imagined credibility by being deliberately dishonest about what we see before our very eyes. When, under this approach, would be the right time to call things as they are? Never, of course, because as soon as one does so, the innocence of wishful thinking and virtue signaling is lost.
But Stewart's take back in January was especially illuminating because it perfectly demonstrates the leopards-are-not-actually-eating-anyone's-faces attitude. For example, Deadline quoted Stewart saying this: "First law of Trumpodynamics, every action is met with a very-not-equal overreaction, thus throwing off our ability to know when sh– is actually getting real." And then he became truly ridiculous:
For some reason, we have given presidents the power of a king. And then we say, ‘Oh, by the way, with that power, you’re not gonna get all like kingly and sh– on us, right?’ To put that in Constitutional terms, if I could, don’t hate the player, hate the founding fathers.
We must be vigilant, but part of vigilance is discernment. Republicans control the House, the Senate, the Executive and the Judiciary and just about every move that has been made ’til this point, we have granted them electorally. It’s our f—ing fault, and the constant drumbeat of encroaching fascism will erode the credibility we will need, if — hopefully if, and not when — it hits.
The question should be: What are you learning from this? How would you use this power? What’s your contract with America? Democrats exist outside of him. Tell people what you would do with the power that Trump is wielding, and then convince us to give that power to you as soon as possible. That’s the goal. It’s enough with the ‘He’s a Hitler, he’s a thing, stop doing it, that’s terrible.’ What would you f—ing do?!”
Deadline also noted: "[Stewart] referenced Trump’s Access Hollywood tape and Project 2025, saying that Trump is now 'democratically' following through with his aforementioned mandates and governing approach."
So, per Stewart, it is all about Democrats losing fair-and-square and whining because Trump is doing what he said he would do. Never mind that Trump denied even knowing about Project 2025 or that he did not in fact follow through on his biggest promises, while doing other things that he promised not to do. It is still, by Stewart's lights, the Democrats who are being unreasonable and too quick to call fascists fascists.
Compare all of that to something I wrote in May 2021:
[H]ere is my prediction about the political coverage in November 2022 and November 2024, after Republicans win in a way that will devastate the possibility of elections ever being free and fair in the future: The commentators will quickly converge on an explanation that involves blaming Democrats for "messaging problems" and failing to understand what voters want. ...
In 2022 and 2024, the real story will be: "This was all baked in during the 2021 orgy of post-Trumpian 'voter security' laws." Nonetheless, I will be stunned if the dominant stories are not based on the claims that: (1) the Democrats "have a wokeness problem," (2) the economy was too weak (or the Democrats underplayed its strength), (3) Democrats did not sufficiently rebuke BLM/antifa/defund people, (4) the Republicans' "ground game" was better, (5) Republicans fielded stronger candidates, or any of a list of other well-worn explanations that explain nothing.
This is a mindset that treats election results as presumptively legitimate. Why? Because the leopards cannot possible be eating our faces. It is one thing to say in advance that Republicans are trying to fix elections, but as soon as they actually do so, everyone is apparently supposed to forget how the rules were changed and instead simply look at the numbers on the scoreboard. Because numbers are objective and true, right? The Chicago White Sox lost the 1919 World Series, five games to three, right? You can see it in black and white (pun inevitable).
So I suppose we are to think that nothing odd is happening. Trump is on a winning streak, and we can only wish that Democrats had been slightly better at elections.
Again, in some ways it made sense to think that when things truly became catastrophic, people would snap out of their trances and deal with reality -- most likely too late, but at least no longer living in denial. Instead, we live in a world where people who have not even been charged with crimes are being sent to die in newly built concentration camps, yet the political conversation is all about admiring a "winner" and telling everyone else to shut up. I wish I were surprised.
- Neil H. Buchanan