Donald Trump is a bad president. But that’s not why we loathe him.
Indifference to the environment, the human cost of a tattered social safety net, and the risks attendant to reckless nuclear threats are hardly unique aspects of Trump’s presidency: they’re the American way. It’s certainly alarming that Trump has repealed common-sense environmental regulations, threatened social services, and withdrawn from the Iran deal. But those acts, which would also feature in a hypothetical Ted Cruz presidency, don’t explain the scale of the reaction to Trump. They don’t account for the existence of neologisms like “Trumpocalypse,” or tell us why late-night hosts and satirists are constantly inventing new, creative ways to mock POTUS’s weave.
The feature that makes Trump unique, and the focus of a particular kind of outrage and contempt, is not his policy prescriptions or even his several hundred thousand character failings. God knows plenty of presidents have been horrible people. What sets Trump apart is his shamelessness.
For example, Trump is not the first president or popular public figure to be accused of sexual assault—it’s a crowded field these days. But he was the first to adopt a “takes one to know one” defense—using his political opponent’s husband’s accusers as a human shield to deflect personal responsibility.
Instead of following the prescribed political ritual for making amends after being caught in flagrante, namely, a contrite press conference featuring a stiff if loyal wife, Trump chose to go on the offensive, even insisting that the infamous “pussy tape” must have been a fabrication. Trump established the pattern of “doubling down” early on when he refused to walk back his comment that John McCain’s capture and subsequent torture during the Vietnam War disqualified him from being considered a war hero. It seems attempts to shame Trump only provoke more shameful acts which fail to faze him.
Where other presidents have been cagey, Trump is brazen. He did not invent the Southern Strategy, but he was the first to employ it with so little discretion that the term “dog whistling” now feels too subtle. (Remember, the tiki-marchers shouting “Jew[s] will not replace us” contained among them some “very fine people.”) There is no shortage of vain politicians, but while John Edwards felt compelled to apologize for his $400 haircut, Trump flaunts his saffron pompadour and matching face. Nepotism may be as old as the Borgias, but the boldness with which Trump has appointed family members and their agents to positions of authority still manages to stun. And while nuclear brinksmanship was a defining feature of 20th century presidencies, never before has the “leader of the free world” literally bragged about the size of his big red button and attempted to fat-shame the leader of a rival nuclear power.
Even when it appears as if Trump is on the verge of an apology or admission, he quickly lapses back into shamelessness. When Trump was criticized for lamenting violence on “many sides” following Heather Heyer’s murder in Charlottesville, Trump was pressured by advisers into releasing a statement explicitly condemning neo-Nazis. But he soon walked it back, once again blaming “both sides” and the “alt-left” for being “very violent.” (Again, remember which side featured a white supremacist who killed a woman.)
This impudence, this shamelessness, is essentially Trump’s calling card. And those who object to it have often sought to restore the balance by trying even harder to shame him, or, in the alternative, by trying to shame his followers into acting like reasonable human beings. “Shame on all of us for making Donald Trump a Thing,” wrote conservative writer Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry back in 2015. Throngs of protestors chanted “shame, shame, shame” along Trump’s motorcade route after his “fine people” remark. The Guardian’s Jessica Valenti wrote that shaming is both justified and “necessary” because “there are people right now who should be made to feel uncomfortable” because “what they have done is shameful.”
MSNBC host Joy Ann Reid has also sought to shame Trump voters, for example by tweeting: “Last November, 63 million of you voted to pretty much hand this country over to a few uber wealthy families and the religious far right. Well done.” Washington Monthly contributor David Atkins has echoed this sentiment, tweeting: “Good news white working class! Your taxes will go up, your Medicare will be cut and your kid’s student loans will be more expensive. But at least Don Jr can bring back elephant trunks on his tax deductible private jet, so it’s all good.”
“How could he/they!?” is a popular way to start sentences about either Trump or his supporters. The statistic that 53% of white women voted for Trump (how could they??) is a useful tool both for shaming others and the self-flagellation-cum-virtue-signaling characteristic of some white women who “knew better.” Even suggesting that politicians talk to Trump voters is grounds for ridicule. Forget scarlet letters—nothing short of community expulsion will do. They’re “irredeemable” after all. So why bother “reaching out”?
Believe me, I empathize. Trump’s policies hurt people, and the people who voted for him did so willingly. Given the easy-to-anticipate consequences of their votes, Trump voters do seem like bad people who should be ashamed. We’re often encouraged to engage more civilly with “people who disagree with us,” but the divergent value systems reflected by America’s two major political parties cut to the core of who we are. They are not necessarily mere disagreements, but deep moral schisms, which is why commentators like Valenti insist that a high level of outrage is appropriate to the circumstances. If you’re not outraged, you’re not taking seriously enough the harm done to the immigrant families torn apart by ICE. Mere fact-based criticisms of various policy positions feel inadequate, as if they trivialize the moral issues involved. It seems important to add that various beliefs, themselves, are shameful. No wonder, then, that the shared impulse isn’t just to disagree, but to “drag,” destroy, and decimate.
Given what’s at stake, I understand why shaming feels not only appropriate, but compulsory. It’s an inclination I share and sympathize with.
But in practice, I think it’s a mistake.
by Briahna Joy Gray, Current Affairs | Read more:
Image: Tyler Rubenfeld
Indifference to the environment, the human cost of a tattered social safety net, and the risks attendant to reckless nuclear threats are hardly unique aspects of Trump’s presidency: they’re the American way. It’s certainly alarming that Trump has repealed common-sense environmental regulations, threatened social services, and withdrawn from the Iran deal. But those acts, which would also feature in a hypothetical Ted Cruz presidency, don’t explain the scale of the reaction to Trump. They don’t account for the existence of neologisms like “Trumpocalypse,” or tell us why late-night hosts and satirists are constantly inventing new, creative ways to mock POTUS’s weave.
The feature that makes Trump unique, and the focus of a particular kind of outrage and contempt, is not his policy prescriptions or even his several hundred thousand character failings. God knows plenty of presidents have been horrible people. What sets Trump apart is his shamelessness.
For example, Trump is not the first president or popular public figure to be accused of sexual assault—it’s a crowded field these days. But he was the first to adopt a “takes one to know one” defense—using his political opponent’s husband’s accusers as a human shield to deflect personal responsibility.Instead of following the prescribed political ritual for making amends after being caught in flagrante, namely, a contrite press conference featuring a stiff if loyal wife, Trump chose to go on the offensive, even insisting that the infamous “pussy tape” must have been a fabrication. Trump established the pattern of “doubling down” early on when he refused to walk back his comment that John McCain’s capture and subsequent torture during the Vietnam War disqualified him from being considered a war hero. It seems attempts to shame Trump only provoke more shameful acts which fail to faze him.
Where other presidents have been cagey, Trump is brazen. He did not invent the Southern Strategy, but he was the first to employ it with so little discretion that the term “dog whistling” now feels too subtle. (Remember, the tiki-marchers shouting “Jew[s] will not replace us” contained among them some “very fine people.”) There is no shortage of vain politicians, but while John Edwards felt compelled to apologize for his $400 haircut, Trump flaunts his saffron pompadour and matching face. Nepotism may be as old as the Borgias, but the boldness with which Trump has appointed family members and their agents to positions of authority still manages to stun. And while nuclear brinksmanship was a defining feature of 20th century presidencies, never before has the “leader of the free world” literally bragged about the size of his big red button and attempted to fat-shame the leader of a rival nuclear power.
Even when it appears as if Trump is on the verge of an apology or admission, he quickly lapses back into shamelessness. When Trump was criticized for lamenting violence on “many sides” following Heather Heyer’s murder in Charlottesville, Trump was pressured by advisers into releasing a statement explicitly condemning neo-Nazis. But he soon walked it back, once again blaming “both sides” and the “alt-left” for being “very violent.” (Again, remember which side featured a white supremacist who killed a woman.)
This impudence, this shamelessness, is essentially Trump’s calling card. And those who object to it have often sought to restore the balance by trying even harder to shame him, or, in the alternative, by trying to shame his followers into acting like reasonable human beings. “Shame on all of us for making Donald Trump a Thing,” wrote conservative writer Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry back in 2015. Throngs of protestors chanted “shame, shame, shame” along Trump’s motorcade route after his “fine people” remark. The Guardian’s Jessica Valenti wrote that shaming is both justified and “necessary” because “there are people right now who should be made to feel uncomfortable” because “what they have done is shameful.”
MSNBC host Joy Ann Reid has also sought to shame Trump voters, for example by tweeting: “Last November, 63 million of you voted to pretty much hand this country over to a few uber wealthy families and the religious far right. Well done.” Washington Monthly contributor David Atkins has echoed this sentiment, tweeting: “Good news white working class! Your taxes will go up, your Medicare will be cut and your kid’s student loans will be more expensive. But at least Don Jr can bring back elephant trunks on his tax deductible private jet, so it’s all good.”
“How could he/they!?” is a popular way to start sentences about either Trump or his supporters. The statistic that 53% of white women voted for Trump (how could they??) is a useful tool both for shaming others and the self-flagellation-cum-virtue-signaling characteristic of some white women who “knew better.” Even suggesting that politicians talk to Trump voters is grounds for ridicule. Forget scarlet letters—nothing short of community expulsion will do. They’re “irredeemable” after all. So why bother “reaching out”?
Believe me, I empathize. Trump’s policies hurt people, and the people who voted for him did so willingly. Given the easy-to-anticipate consequences of their votes, Trump voters do seem like bad people who should be ashamed. We’re often encouraged to engage more civilly with “people who disagree with us,” but the divergent value systems reflected by America’s two major political parties cut to the core of who we are. They are not necessarily mere disagreements, but deep moral schisms, which is why commentators like Valenti insist that a high level of outrage is appropriate to the circumstances. If you’re not outraged, you’re not taking seriously enough the harm done to the immigrant families torn apart by ICE. Mere fact-based criticisms of various policy positions feel inadequate, as if they trivialize the moral issues involved. It seems important to add that various beliefs, themselves, are shameful. No wonder, then, that the shared impulse isn’t just to disagree, but to “drag,” destroy, and decimate.
Given what’s at stake, I understand why shaming feels not only appropriate, but compulsory. It’s an inclination I share and sympathize with.
But in practice, I think it’s a mistake.
by Briahna Joy Gray, Current Affairs | Read more:
Image: Tyler Rubenfeld
