The Atlantic: History Will Judge the Complicit - Why have Republican leaders abandoned
Subtitle: Why have Republican leaders abandoned their principles in support of an immoral and dangerous president?
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/07/trumps-collaborators/612250/
I won't normally post articles behind paywalls but TheAtlantic.com does have some limited number of free views per month. This one is worth one of your views. Of course, I think The Atlantic is worth every penny for a subscription, too. (Going to be saving some money cancelling my NYT, again.)
Much background and history precede the following excerpt.
The built-in vision of themselves as American patriots, or as competent administrators, or as loyal party members, also created a cognitive distortion that blinded many Republicans and Trump-administration officials to the precise nature of the presidents alternative value system. After all, the early incidents were so trivial. They overlooked the lie about the inauguration because it was silly. They ignored Trumps appointment of the wealthiest Cabinet in history, and his decision to stuff his administration with former lobbyists, because thats business as usual. They made excuses for Ivanka Trumps use of a private email account, and for Jared Kushners conflicts of interest, because thats just family stuff.
One step at a time, Trumpism fooled many of its most enthusiastic adherents. Recall that some of the original intellectual supporters of Trumppeople like Steve Bannon, Michael Anton, and the advocates of national conservatism, an ideology invented, post hoc, to rationalize the presidents behavioradvertised their movement as a recognizable form of populism: an antiWall Street, anti-foreign-wars, anti-immigration alternative to the small-government libertarianism of the establishment Republican Party. Their Drain the swamp slogan implied that Trump would clean up the rotten world of lobbyists and campaign finance that distorts American politics, that he would make public debate more honest and legislation more fair. Had this actually been Trumps ruling philosophy, it might well have posed difficulties for the Republican Party leadership in 2016, given that most of them had quite different values. But it would not necessarily have damaged the Constitution, and it would not necessarily have posed fundamental moral challenges to people in public life.
In practice, Trump has governed according to a set of principles very different from those articulated by his original intellectual supporters. Although some of his speeches have continued to use that populist language, he has built a Cabinet and an administration that serve neither the public nor his voters but rather his own psychological needs and the interests of his own friends on Wall Street and in business and, of course, his own family. His tax cuts disproportionately benefited the wealthy, not the working class. His shallow economic boom, engineered to ensure his reelection, was made possible by a vast budget deficit, on a scale Republicans once claimed to abhor, an enormous burden for future generations. He worked to dismantle the existing health-care system without offering anything better, as hed promised to do, so that the number of uninsured people rose. All the while he fanned and encouraged xenophobia and racism, both because he found them politically useful and because they are part of his personal worldview.
More important, he has governed in defianceand in ignoranceof the American Constitution, notably declaring, well into his third year in office, that he had total authority over the states. His administration is not merely corrupt, it is also hostile to checks, balances, and the rule of law. He has built a proto-authoritarian personality cult, firing or sidelining officials who have contradicted him with facts and evidencewith tragic consequences for public health and the economy. He threatened to fire a top Centers for Disease Control and Prevention official, Nancy Messonnier, in late February, after her too-blunt warnings about the coronavirus; Rick Bright, a top Health and Human Services official, says he was demoted after refusing to direct money to promote the unproven drug hydroxychloroquine. Trump has attacked Americas military, calling his generals a bunch of dopes and babies, and Americas intelligence services and law-enforcement officers, whom he has denigrated as the deep state and whose advice he has ignored. He has appointed weak and inexperienced acting officials to run Americas most important security institutions. He has systematically wrecked Americas alliances.
Ending paragraph:
Not that I expect the repuglicon party to return to decency. And trump never had it in the first place.
Mike 03
(16,616 posts)IMO it's one of the most insightful and important essays I've seen since this nightmare began four years ago.
dalton99a
(81,065 posts)(Australian Financial Review, November 9, 2016)
eppur_se_muova
(36,227 posts)Maybe a long time ago, but ...
erronis
(14,941 posts)(https://www.democraticunderground.com/100213553416)
I had just finished the book when I received a short email from Bernie [Bernard Weisberger, historian], who had been watching on television the events following the killing of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis. He wrote, All this open talk by Trump of dominance is pretty undisguised fascism. Hes inciting chaos to set the stage for the strong man to rescue the nation.
So does Trump. He understands that most Americans are concerned with little more than the economy, health care and jobs. They respond positively to politicians who promise action on these priorities, whether or not they know if those promises will ever be fulfilled. Ravitch pointed out that like Hitler and like Mussolini, Trump knows how to appeal to a variety of concerns with promises that can be both attractive and contradictory. Because no population is educated enough, sensitive enough, or ethical enough to see through the deception, the danger is very great indeed. It may in fact be one of the chief weaknesses of democracy that democracy can lead to tyranny just as well or perhaps even more than other political systems.
yankee87
(2,075 posts)Like your article states, a lot of people are just worried about their families and to worried about their jobs to get political. While that was never me, I can see how it happens. I have friends from my childhood who still believe the economy was crap until 45 came into office and he is reason they have a job. It's actually scary.
zentrum
(9,865 posts)It's rather that Trumpism allowed them to be who they really are.
They will only defy him at the point Trumpism threatens their power.
They are more polite, more properbut they are him. He is they.
sandensea
(21,526 posts)Big Finance and Big Business were behind it.