Fight The Cowards

Happy New Year!

Are you wondering whether we should say that?  Or even can say that?  I don't blame you.  Not after January 6.  Not after decades of speculation about a potential civil war in the United States gave way to a reality I had hoped and prayed we would not have to experience.

But given way it has.  And now we know what we're facing.  Not the "economically dispossessed."  Not victims of a new world order.  Not regular folks who have been "disrespected" by a cultural elite.

We're facing bullies.  Even worse, we're facing bullies whose intolerance is empowered not just by racism, but by religion.

I don't speak in a vacuum about either phenomenon.  Let me take a few lines to explain.  Fair warning:  it will probably be more than a few.  You may want to take a few minutes to go and get a drink, some popcorn or other snacks.  It's fine with me.

Settled in?  OK.  Here goes.

I grew up in Baltimore County, Maryland in the 1960s.  I went to public schools that were dominated by white, middle-class students and faculty whose views on race and religion were decidedly white and Christian.  In the America of that time, this was considered to be completely normal.  Even patriotic.  If you weren't white, if you weren't middle-class or more, if you weren't Christian, well, you weren't part of the majority of the nation.  You weren't American.  Period.

I was brought up to object, to speak out against this, as much as I possibly could.  And I did.  And I paid a price, one that was painful but do not regret for an instant.  I was bullied.  I was beaten up once by a gang that outnumbered me seven-to-one.  I was kicked down from behind by a member of this gang who was upset by the fact that I called him a coward (irony, obviously, was lost on him).  I was extorted for lunch money and chased down when I didn't surrender it (and that happened when I spent a year in California, then as now a more "liberal" state).  I was bullied, physically and verbally, all the way through high school, even by a teacher who objected to my support for George McGovern's presidential campaign.

From that experience, I moved on to college, with self-esteem so low that it could not reach up to touch bottom even if it stood on top of the Empire State Building.  That led me into the world of evangelical Christianity, a world that taught me to dis-enthrone my brain in dealing with day-to-day reality, to embrace belief--but belief as defined by an interpretation of Scripture that could alternate between being narrow and being slippery.  Over a period of more than a decade, and despite denials from my fellow believers, that interpretation marched this country further and further to the right.  I tried to hold on to my faith as long as I could, until reality demanded my brain back.

So, with regard to the present moment, what should you take from this slice of autobiography?

That bullying can break people down, and open them up to blinkered ideology.  And that ideology can become bullying in and of itself.  Until you decide to take charge of your life, internally and externally.  Which I did.  And it turned by life around, completely and positively, in every single way.  Without fear of what might happen if I was willing to make major changes.  Without worrying about how anyone might react.

In sum, I know how bullies work.  I know how ideologies work.  And I know how to fight them both, even when they work hand-in-hand, like the insurrectionists who assaulted our democracy 12 days ago.  And those insurrectionists, first and foremost, are bullies.

Bullies are sneaks.  Bullies rely on overwhelming force.  And bullies, when they've achieved the object of their bullying, pretend that the rancid consequences of their bullying, pretend that their victims are to blame for the actions of the perpetrators.

In a word, bullies, like my attacker-from-the-rear of so very long ago, are cowards.

And bullies armed with ideology are even worse.  By definition, using reason against them is useless.  By definition, they respect no boundaries except the ones they choose to create.  For their purposes.  Not yours.  Not ours.  Theirs.

January 6 exposed white, male, Christian ideologists, and their ideology, as the bullying that poses the clearest and most present danger to our Republic.  They relied on overwhelming numbers and unprovoked violence.  They used intimidation to achieve what they could otherwise only have dreamed of doing.  And their success is defended in public by allies in high places, allies who demand--no softer word suffices--that the bullying be forgiven, or overlooked, or perhaps even justified, all in the name of--I can barely stomach even typing the word--healing.

This much is certain:  nothing that happened on January 6 can be justified in the name of conservatism.  Certainly not as conservatism as it has been redefined over the past four decades.  The assault on the Capitol was certainly not about limited government.  Limited government does not permit a mob organized by one branch of government to launch a full-scale attack on another.  And it was certainly not about personal responsibility.  After all, to borrow a phrase, "If conservatives believe so strongly in 'personal responsibility', why do they constantly blame liberals for all of their problems?"

Classical conservative was defined very differently, as I've noted here more than once.  Classical conservatism was all about reverence for, and learning from, history.  Indeed, when it comes to the need to preserve historic structures and sites, I consider myself to be a conservative.  I mean, good grief, the word conserve is embedded in a minute.  And that illustrates a central and tragic irony about modern American conservatism.  It systemically rewrites, revises, and even destroys history, and the physical fabric of historic sites, because the lessons of history distract from and ultimately defeat from the narcissistic, short-term goals that matter to it, such as personal profit.  Read about the history of Rhodes Tavern if you want to see an example of how this has, and does, work.  And, slowly but surely, over forty years, modern conservatism has burned through a number of narcissistic, short-term goals--profit, military adventure, advancing theocracy--until it only has one left, the one that threads through the entire American experience:  white nationalism.  And this is why physically desecrating one of the most sacred of American buildings, and threatening and even killing those who occupy it, should not at all be shocking, as shocking as it nevertheless is to so many of us.  

White nationalism has always tried to hide behind fundamentalist Christianity; as the Reagan era has collapsed in slow-motion, the evangelicals are the only die-hard Republicans left, their faith and their bigotry representing what Pat Buchanan once celebrated as the triumph of belief over reason.  That triumph, sadly, as I have already described, is something essential that white nationalism shares with fundamentalist Christianity, something that allows those who subscribe to either movement, or both of them, to jump in for the emotional sugar-rush, and stay for the manipulation by the leaders.  And make no mistake:  those leaders are not among the "economically dispossessed"; far from it, as the leadership at the Capitol insurrection illustrates.

And the Commander-in-Chief was the Insurrectionist-in-Chief.  Donald Trump has never been a fundamentalist Christian, but he has always been a white nationalist, and one of his few real talents, as a con artist who knows what a mark looks like, has, throughout his campaign and presidency, understood the overlap between the constituencies and how both of them can be manipulated to assist him in his pursuit of power.  And, as any woman with any experience with Trump can tell you, he is no stranger to the use of violence.

No one should doubt that this was an insurrection, either.  Violent overthrow of the government for the sake of protecting Trump was, without any doubt, the goal of the attackers.  As for Trump's own appraisal of his supporters?  "I love you.  You're very special." 

Nor should anyone doubt the lack of spontaneity for this event.  There is plenty of evidence of planning and coordination.  By dark money interests.  By the wife of a Supreme Court Justice.  By Trump apparatchiks at the Pentagon. By Members of Congress themselves, directed in some cases at other Members.  Even at the Speaker herself.  And this is why the outcry to respond through the impeachment of Trump, and the permanent barring of him from public office, is as bipartisan as it can be, including Tom Nichols and John Podhoretz as well as the New York Times.

Perhaps above all, no one should doubt the naked bigotry that fueled the attack, as well as the equally naked reliance on the police to express said bigotry.  Sadly, this even applies to the Capitol Police, who in the past have been guilty of needlessly heavy-handed treatment of peaceful protestors (for the record, here are Exhibits A and B).  Not so on this occasion:  they not only welcomed the attackers with open arms, but even posed with them for selfies.  After all, like police officers in other events (Exhibits C and D), this is what they were supposed to do.  And, when they didn't, the attackers let the police know their displeasure, both verbally and physically.

Oh, and one more thing:  no one should doubt that the insurrectionists may have placed the national security of this nation, and perhaps the world, at risk in the process.  Their safety, as well as yours, not that they give a damn about the latter.

And even this does not bring an end to the list of those who bear responsibility for the insurrection.  

After all, the attackers were attempting to block a normally routine, but essential process in our democracy:  the certification of the Electoral College votes and the formal declaration of the presidential election winner.  This year, the process was anything but routine:  despite the absence of any voter fraud, and the failure of dozens of court challenges alleging the existence of such fraud, many Republicans in both houses of Congress went into the certification joint session having publicly announced their intention to challenge the certification.  Even more stupefying:  147 of them, even after they and their colleagues were assaulted and threatened, still voted to reject the certification.  None of them should be allowed to remain in Congress, and all of them, at the very least, should be investigated for criminal violations relative to potential participation in the attack and the violence that resulted from it.

And now we come to the truly cowardly part:  the efforts by conservative press commentators to minimize the attack and its consequences by either engaging in "whataboutism"  or blaming the violence of their allies by alleged infiltration by the left (Exhibits E, F, and G).  Regarding the latter, I'm not worried about the likelihood of its success; the video evidence to the contrary, provided by both the perpetrators and brave observers, is more than enough to refute that canard.  As for the former:  well, to an extent, I do blame the Democrats.  Not for fighting too hard, but for not fighting hard enough in the past.  Had they done so, I have to wonder, and I think we all have to wonder:  did that lead their opponents to view them as a soft target?  That is something that they will have to guard against, going forward.  And the rest of us have to help them, while simultaneously holding them to account.

Perhaps the biggest way in which we can help them is by holding the right-wing media, and Rupert Murdoch to account, for marshalling lies, gossip, and other forms of informational malice in the service of their craven ambitions (Exhibits H, I, and J).  And, in the process, the best way we can expose the bullying by the right, and the ideology it tries to advance, is by exposing the cowardice that characterizes the bullying, as well as the cravenness that characterizes the ideology.

What does all of this portend for the future?

Well, we've got an inauguration of a new Administration, and an impeachment trial for the soon-to-be-former President coming up.  And, with Democrats in charge by the thinnest of majorities, forward progress on behalf of the American people (i.e., the work the government is actually supposed to do) will be hard.  Perhaps above all, and for the first time since the Civil War, there's legitimate reason to be concerned about the survival of the American experiment, a subject about which multiple commentators have already opined (Exhibits K and L).

Frankly, I respect their concern.  Indeed, I share it to a certain extent.  But I believe that Americans, and the word, need America to survive.  And, as a survivor of both bullying and ideology, I firmly believe that survival, and better than survival, are possible.  Especially in a case like this one, in which the bullies may be starting to turn in on themselves.

But we have to do so on our feet, not our knees.  And we have to do so with our ideas, and not just our feelings.

Those are the only ways to deal with bullies and ideologues.  And they are the only ways to not only preserve our heritage, but to build upon it as well.

And with those thoughts, and my own commitment to act upon them as though our lives depend upon it, I say once again to all of you:

Happy New Year.

Celebrate a new presidency and, with it, a new hope.