Here’s to betting that impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump prove a political disaster for the US and the Democrats; that Trumpism emerges more popular than ever; and that the drift towards the disintegration of the republic continues.
If this occurs, it will, I suspect, be because many in the leadership of the Democrats, especially in the congress, see the riot in Washington last week as a “teachable occasion” – a platform by which American “deplorables” and other discontents can be made to see the error of their perceptions. Can, moreover, be wrenched from rabble-rousers in the pulpit, the National Rifle Association, in social media, or in extreme right-wing media who have encouraged and developed their sense of displacement from society.
The big problem is that most senior Democrats are not speaking the same language as most modern Republicans. It is not merely that the nation has become hyper-partisan and that party affiliation is more a matter of culture and religion than of economic philosophy or preference as between smorgasbords of electoral goodies. Or that they have different sources of “news”, attribute significance to different “facts” and have low trust in the mainstream media.
It is that the differences are so great that communication seems to have become almost impossible. It is aggravated by the fact that a good many working-class Republicans sense (correctly) that senior Democrats despise them. Their loving reproofs are rightly seen as patronising. Remember when Hillary Clinton referred to the “deplorables”? Words and symbols have different meanings; the relationship between head and heart, or logic and emotion are fundamentally different, and there seems less and less common ground.
The result will be that the words by which Democrats believe they can discredit Trumpism forever will satisfy only Democrats and the mainstream commentariat but have a scarce impact on the people and the party Trump controls. It’s not about reason and logic, or correct legal syllogisms. Nor is the argument that proceedings must occur because “there must be consequences” for the incitement of rebellion. (If consequences are necessary, he could, of course, be criminally charged with this on January 21, and I doubt any self-pardons will be a bar. But a jury of nine Republicans might be.)
Trumpites see Democrats as elitists, hectoring, arrogant, snobbish and condescending. Democrats did not win by winning back Republicans but by organising a bigger turnout from their own constituencies.
Perhaps it would be nice, from the Democrat point of view if Americans “came together.” But it by no means follows that they will come together under Biden, or Democrat politicians with agendas, such as, for example, Nancy Pelosi, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, or Kamala Harris, let alone the now-retired predecessor Hillary Clinton. So personalised has been the hatred memes of the past four years, that Trumpites give an involuntary shudder, and utter an oath, each time they hear such names. They see most of what they say as elitist, hectoring, arrogant, snobbish and condescending, and out of touch with the feelings and needs of “real” Americans. Democrats did not win the election by wooing Republicans back into the fold. They won it by organising a bigger turnout from their own constituencies.
Nor is there a simple morality play by which the most alienated Republicans can be brought to understand that the election was fair, and that, the majority being Democrat, Republicans must accept the verdict and accept its decisions with the same enthusiasm as they greeted decisions by Trump. They may come to grudgingly accept Joe Biden — a man hard to hate — but it is difficult to imagine them ever identifying him — as, rightly or wrongly, so many have come to identify Trump — as brave, patriotic, a reformer, an outsider, and a person who, despite manifest flaws seemed to be an instrument of God. Most Australians, like most non-Americans, may sneer at this reverence for Trump, or the ready and emotional acceptance of his gospel, whatever that is. But his very success, before his ultimate failure, is a reminder that Trump is a brand, an ideology and a movement.
As Democrats see it, Trump and Trumpism were decisively defeated at the election. The run-offs for senate places in Georgia gave them legitimate control of congress. The election itself provided Biden with both a domestic and international mandate, including an explicit one of winding back many of the more disastrous policies of the past four years. It was also a mandate for a more urgent approach to the coronavirus pandemic and a reversal of anti-migration policies. They have no need, as such, to apologise to the losers. Yet Biden, and others, have talked the language of reconciliation, and of uniting the nation again. And the appalling way in which Trump extremists went too far in Washington, as well as Trump’s impeachable manner of whipping up the rage has made clear the need for some agreement about common ground.
Even extremist Republicans such as Mitch McConnell, who have never dreamed of making the slightest concession to the sentiments of Democrats, or of supporting any measures with which Democrats were associated, is now talking conciliatory words about cooperation. Yet the logic of this paragraph starts with the assumption, which many Republicans, despite the evidence, refuse to accept, that Biden won the election.
No doubt Democrats will feel that an impeachment trial is just the occasion for a feast of righteous preaching by the winners to the losers. Who could pass up the opportunity to mock a discredited and deluded soon-to-be former president, still insisting he was robbed. A man accused of urging and encouraging a violent riot at which an array of his crazies rampaged down Washington streets into congress. Some were armed, and seemingly determined to fight and die to prevent the winners of what they had been encouraged to believe was a rigged election using the power that election had given them. Whether as coup attempt or rampage, it was complete over-reach, susceptible even to the feeble and half-hearted attempts by police, many of them obvious sympathisers, to restrain them.
The over-reach was soon underlined by the president’s denial that he had incited their violence and his insistence that he had always urged peaceful exercise of rights of free assembly, not violence and destruction. To the bemusement of many of the true believers, he has even threatened the wrath of the state on those who responded to his call.
The question remains, however, whether the Democrats have the words, the language, and the followership to make mainstream and fringe Republicans look abashed and ashamed. To make them realise the error of their ways, the falseness of their perceptions and the need to play politics like gentlemen and gentlewoman. Even the orator and persuader of the age, Barack Obama, couldn’t make that happen.
John Waterford AM, better known as Jack Waterford, is an Australian journalist and commentator.
Comments
13 responses to “Forget the insurrection as ‘a teaching opportunity’”
Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton have been on the radio naming Putin as the Man behind the Capitol protest (“all roads lead to Putin”) and have called for yet another inquiry into Russian influence. Wars are a great distraction from domestic issues and are a proven method of uniting a country against the common foe. Perhaps Biden can get Republicans and Democrats to work together against the man who’s ultimately responsible for dividing America. After all, if the yanks will believe in QAnon and that the election was rigged it should be easy to get them to swallow some more bullshit about Russian interference and start a war.
Mr Waterford, thanks for another thought provoking contribution. It seems to me that when the usual binaries between people in a country are allowed to grow unchecked, at some point they can come together to coalesce into two mammoth social groups that appear almost irreconcilable. The obvious ones are rich/poor, highly educated/poorly educated, city/country, religious/secular etcetera. When all the descriptives on the left of the binary come together and those on the right of the binary do the same, we have two mammoth groups i.e. anti-Trump (Democrats but now with a few Republicans) and pro-Trump factions. Previously, all these differences exist but are homogenised within the milieu of American society rendering them tolerable. The commonality that bound them was the huge middle class social grouping. However, with the rising inequality between the rich and the poor, despair turns to blind faith that sees Trump as the messiah. The straws that he offers them e.g. Make America Great Again, are clutched as if they are realities. In the past, these are the makings of revolutions e.g. the French Third Estate (unprivileged) against the first two (privileged), the Russian Revolution (aristocracy against the masses) or even the American War of Independence.
Politicians manufacture differences in order to gain supporters. However, if these differences are real and quite tangible, it aggravates the polarisation of the populace into a situation that would make it very difficult to mend. I believe that today, China is doing extremely well because they are at the stage of development when they are bringing more people out of poverty and the middle class is growing. They are not yet at the point where differences between the rich and poor are so large that they generate two big antagonistic factions. Singapore, South Korea and Japan are stable because they have that normal curve of a big middle class with the extremely rich and extremely poor making up a small number at the ends. The US governments had in fact neglected their own people while they were busy playing Sheriff around the world. If the US had continued to maintain a big middle class by making sure that the gap between the rich and poor does not grow intolerable, they would continue to keep their soft power purely by force of example instead of through military exertion.
My worry for Australia is that the LNP leadership is more interested in playing geopolitics than making sure that the economic wellbeing of the country is not compromised as a result of such an indulgence. Which church can we go to that would buy our indulgence? It is quite obvious to any sensible observer that the Chinese and the smaller countries that are willing to cooperate with it will recover economically faster from the pandemic and continue to grow rapidly. The question is who will we be selling our products to when all others, like us, are trying to recover?
Dear me
“The Democrats, de-facto, love the ‘palestinians’ and hate the existence of a Jewish State in the Middle East. If they could get away with it, they would ‘complete Hitler’s work.’ ”
Irrespective of the many deficiencies in Democrat policies this is just plain and simple deranged libel.
The ‘We the People of 1776‘ all died some two centuries ago. A substantial majority of living Americans who voted in November 2020 chose Democrats as their preferred representatives of contemporary America. Perhaps disconcerting to commentators with a righteously set notion of how things are ordained to be – but at some point we need to inhabit a reality based perception of the world.
America of 1776 white, British and Judaeo-Christian? Christian (of the lunatic Puritan persuasion) certainly, but not much Judaeo. Jews only entered the US in large numbers with the mass migrations from Europe toward the end of the 19th Century. They have certainly made their mark since then however, to the point where their money has a toxic stranglehold on the Congress and much else. “Disloyal, self-made elitist globalists” describes them pretty well actually, or at least their upper echelon. And they control the Democrat party, so the chances of the Dems doing another Hitler on the Jews are pretty slim at the moment, I would think.
A lot of generalisations about Democrats and the many things they ‘hate’ in this rant, and not much connection to Jack’s article.
The Democrats, de-facto, love the ‘palestinians’ and hate the existence of a Jewish State in the Middle East. If they could get away with it, they would ‘complete Hitler’s work.’
I agree with Bob, this is deranged. It’s the common conflation of anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, but expressed in a very extreme fashion.
Why should they represent the America of 1776? It may have escaped your attention, but this is 2021. Both sides should represent the America of 2021. This certainly includes the 1776 tradition, but not exclusively.
PS, can’t accept loyalty to 1776 in the Trump Republicans unless you mean by that violent rebellion and treachery to oaths sworn. That’s certainly Trump’s Republicans.
What is happening in the US needs to be looked at in the international context, namely the rise in nationalism, tribalism and racism around the world that is polarizing nations and leading to wars. This cycle has occurred repeatedly between 1740 and 1914 as 231 wars and revolution occurred in Europe. Since the end of WWII nuclear weapons have been a factor in preventing the cold war from developing into a WWIII, but memories are short as potential conflicts in the Ukraine, Middle East, China Sea and elsewhere threaten to flare up.
I disagree with Jack Waterford. My impression over the last couple of weeks is that many Republicans in Congress now see Trump as a liability and that the one way they can stop him from rebuilding his image over the next 4 years, with the prospect of running again in 2024, is to bar him from public office. If impeachment doesn’t provide a mechanism for barring Trump, then according to a report in Bloomberg from 11 January, ”
There’s been talk of deploying the 14th Amendment, enacted in the aftermath of the Civil War, to make Trump ineligible from running again. Section 3 of that amendment prohibits any government official who participated in or supported an insurrection against the U.S. from holding office in the future. Because a resolution citing the 14th Amendment wouldn’t seek to remove Trump from office, it may not require the same two-thirds Senate vote as an impeachment conviction, and it would sidestep a lengthy trial.”
It seems to me that some (perhaps even an increasing number of) Republicans now see their own self interest in curtailing Trump. In due course we will find out. But Trump’s time in the sun has not ended yet.
The true loss on 6/01 was that there will now never be a transparent audit of the votes cast in 2020.
Democrats believe Biden won and will not be told different.
Republicans believe Trump won and will not be told different.
And because of all the assertions and accusations, and amidst the fog of competing certainties, we just don’t know.
Donald Trump has had his moment in the sun, and he has had his Icarus moment. Let him go. If only that harridan from California, or that chick from NYC, could see that.
Hal, you are right about the imperviousness of both sides. Nevertheless, the facts are entirely on one side, as even many former Trump toadies such as William Barr and Trump’s head of cyber security have acknowledged. The election was as fair as any in history. 60 court cases did not overturn one vote.
As for flaming out, Republicans always claim to believe in law and order, especially when sections of BLM demonstrators were wreaking havoc in American cities last year (and they were right). They can’t say it doesn’t matter when their President commits treason. The 3rd ranked Republican, Liz Cheney, had it exactly right when she called Trump’s incitement the greatest betrayal of the office of President and of the Constitution in US history. The idea of orderly government will suffer an irreparable blow (and may already have done so) if this is dismissed as the peccadillo of an unhinged megalomaniac without a single redeeming human quality. He is certainly those things, but he is also answerable to the law.
Yes I think that this is the true loss from 6/01 and a real danger for the USA. Democracies function because of the goodwill and the trust of the people. Goodwill disappeared in November 2016 and trust in the system is now severely damaged. The fact that a sizeable share of the Republican voters do not believe the vote was fair means they will not trust again for a long time.
However so we are hot hypocritical, let us be honest. The Democrats with their endless denial of the validity of Trump’s election, fanned the flames of this distrust, which again not to be hypocritical started with the truther movement, which undermined the Obama presidency but with much less success. Going back even further were the hanging chads.
The sad reality is that very large slabs of US voters just do not have
any faith in the system. COVID, the economy and infrastructure are huge
challenges for Biden, but coming in a close fourth is the total decline
and faith in democracy and its trappings and i guess in government in
general.
Like an avalanche building- first some small breach then getting bigger and bigger, faith in the US democratic system is a large snowball rolling fast downwards. Now being optimistic it may be that it has hit a large tree and is stopped. If this is the case Biden can regroup and perhaps heal the nation.
My gut suspects this will be so.
However it is possible the snowball will be slowed a little but pick up momentum again. What I am sure about is that impeaching Trump is likely to give it the push it needs to restart.
Janet
I agree completely with you that the coming trial following Trump’s second impeachment will further divide and inflame. It is in no one’s interest to keep Trump in the headlines.
He flew to Florida this morning. He has been kicked off all the social media platforms that could give him a voice. Enough. Find something else to talk about.