The Antidote to Trumpism, Part 1: Diagnosis
Only a week away from his inauguration, many Americans are still struggling to process the reality of a Donald Trump presidency. Communities across the political spectrum, dismayed and determined, are engaged in a cacophonous-yet-necessary discourse regarding the path forward for the country, and myriad ideas have emerged: abolish the electoral college, embrace a populist message that will win back working-class white voters, rally around progressive charities and non-profits, bombard congressional representatives with calls and emails, take to the streets in protest, and plenty more. A number of these measures are intended as stop-gap solutions, bandages to stem the critical bleeding. Some are meant to provide an outlet to vent frustration and voice fear and outrage. Those needs are certainly legitimate, but it is not too soon — indeed, it is woefully past time — to discuss a long-term remedy to the cataclysmic state of American politics.
And it is cataclysmic. To have any hope of devising a workable solution, we must thoroughly and properly assess the current predicament. The failure to take this step sooner is itself a major reason the crisis has become so severe. Donald Trump’s election has put our political climate at DEFCON 1, but our country had been lingering steadily at DEFCON 2 for several years prior — a reality that somehow went largely unnoticed by all but the most politically engaged. By now, it is nigh impossible to overstate the sheer depth of the hole we find ourselves in.
The crisis is not simply that Republicans have gained power while Democrats have lost power. Our country has swung toward one-party control before, and the pendulum has always swung back. No, the problem is that Republicans have gained power by creating and exploiting a disinformed electorate. Far from the usual political mudslinging, they spent years meticulously constructing and promulgating an alternate reality complete with its own set of anti-facts (climate change isn’t real, voter fraud is rampant, etc.), thereby sowing distrust in any person or institution which abides by facts. Over time this distrust metastasized into a grotesquely overgrown persecution complex, and the GOP became the party of political arsonists — a party so driven by anti-intellectual zeal and consumed with cultural resentment that they would rather see this country burnt to the ground than overtaken by a coalition of center-left pluralists. If this assertion seems hyperbolic, perhaps it is because we have become so accustomed to this insanity that we now consider it normal. Surely it needs no corroboration beyond the fact that 90% of Republicans voted for a candidate who experts and even his own party realistically fear may start a nuclear war. (Could there possibly be a more brazenly nihilistic statement than this?) I’ll endeavor to provide it anyway.
First, it is incumbent to understand that the GOP has not always been this way, nor has it been this way for very long. Within recent memory, Republicans have purveyed a party of legitimate ideas. The only way to truly appreciate the profundity of this shift is to travel virtually back in time, in the form of internet time capsule DoleKemp96.org. Yes, the original website for Bob Dole’s 1996 presidential campaign has been preserved, in all of its 640x480 pixel, 8-bit color glory.
Take a look in particular at the issues page. The substance you will find there will seem even more anachronistic than the website’s design. Sure, there’s the standard conservative fare — deficit reduction, tough-on-crime policies, immigration enforcement, tax cuts, “family values,” etc. But what’s astonishing is how Dole touts his role in extending the Voting Rights Act (modern Republicans celebrated when it was gutted by SCOTUS) and passing the Americans with Disabilities Act (modern Republicans voted down a UN treaty modeled on that very law — and who could forget Trump’s cruel mocking of a disabled reporter?). He promises to “provide government help for those wishing to purchase [health insurance] coverage but unable to afford it” and “ensure that individuals who change jobs do not lose their coverage or face pre-existing condition limitations” (gee, that sounds a lot like Obamacare). He talks about expanding education funding, enacting campaign finance reform, reducing the burden of student loans, preserving social security, protecting the environment. Perhaps most ironically of all, he boasts of helping to create the federal Glass Ceiling Commission. If Bob Dole were to run for president on this platform today, he would almost certainly have more success on a Democratic ticket than a Republican one. But don’t take my word for it:
Chris Wallace: “Could people like Bob Dole, even Ronald Reagan — could you make it in today’s Republican Party?”
Bob Dole: “I doubt it. Reagan wouldn’t have made it. Certainly, Nixon couldn’t have made it, because he had ideas. We might have made it, but I doubt it.”
(And yet Dole himself is not immune to the allure of power.)
One may be tempted to think that the contemporary GOP’s positions still count as “ideas,” albeit more extreme ones. But that would assume policy ideas need no basis in reality. Take, for example, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which Republicans in the US Senate refused to ratify. It would be one thing if they favored a different set of policies to aid people with disabilities or even if they affirmatively believed disabled persons ought to be ostracized by society. But they asserted neither of these things, instead predicating their opposition to the treaty on bogus and widely debunked claims. Their celebration of the Shelby County v. Holder decision was ostensibly related to a belief in widespread voter fraud, for which no evidence exists. They certainly have a right to oppose the Affordable Care Act on ideological grounds. They could propose a different mechanism for delivering healthcare; heck, they could even argue that people only deserve to have healthcare if they’re wealthy enough to afford it. The latter position might seem cruel, but at least it would be logically coherent. Instead, Republicans attack the law with a combination of distortions, falsehoods, and outright absurdities. In an alternate universe where Republicans still adhered to conservative ideology instead of vengeful sophistry, they might have championed Obamacare as their own policy idea, as Dole once did.
The Republican Party used to offer conservative solutions to real-world problems — a healthy part of any democracy. Now, they offer deranged flailing about ludicrous conspiracy theories — a deeply toxic development that supplants all ideological merit. Yet as the GOP has drifted further and further from reality, their influence has only grown. Their championing of anti-intellectualism has found a large and receptive audience. If there were any lingering doubt about this phenomenon, it has surely been dispelled in the recent election of Donald Trump.
It’s important not to confuse the anti-intellectualism of Trump and his electoral coalition with the euphemistic “anti-elitism,” as is common in public discourse. While it is true that elites largely comprise the object of their ire, that diagnosis is too broad. They do not rage against elites indiscriminately. This should be obvious — perhaps no American more embodies the essence of the elitism than Donald Trump himself.
To properly identify the antagonists of their worldview, one merely needs to look at those who opposed Trump in the election. He was vociferously and near-unanimously opposed by climate scientists, historians, economists, national security officials, technology experts, writers, psychotherapists, scholars of constitutional law, journalists, nuclear launch officers, diplomats, academics from across the political spectrum, and experts in countless other fields. In other words, Trump was opposed by elites who became elite by virtue of knowledge and expertise. These are the enemies of Trumpism.
Their opposition, however, was not merely a preference for the alternative candidate’s policies. No, their condemnation was far more elementary. They decreed that Trump “poses a unique danger to the functioning of democratic and economic institutions, and to the prosperity of the country.” They cautioned that “a Trump presidency represents a threat to press freedom unknown in modern history” and expressed “doubt he has any awareness of constitutional limits on presidential powers.” They observed that “Trumpism is an emerging form of American fascism.” They discerned that Trump lacked the “composure, judgment, restraint and diplomatic skill” to be trusted with nuclear weapons. They warned that the consequences of his election would be “severe and long-lasting — for our planet’s climate and for the international credibility of the United States.” They pleaded earnestly with the American people to understand that Trump is “dangerous to our nation’s founding ideals,” “a unique and dire threat to the political principles, liberties, and cultural values of justice, fairness, honesty, and decency we have long defended,” and “entirely unqualified to serve as President and Commander-in-Chief.” Out of 652 journalistic publications that endorsed in this election, 96% were opposed to Trump’s candidacy. Newspapers with conservative editorial boards broke with decades — in some cases, more than a century — of tradition by opposing the Republican nominee. They saw that he represented such an existential threat to our nation that they risked their reputations and livelihoods to put the good of the country above partisan politics. Civil society seemed almost entirely unified in the belief that Donald Trump must be stopped at all costs.
And yet 63 million Americans voted for him anyway.
These voters did not express opposition to elitism. No, they expressed opposition to the very idea of objective reality. They furiously and forcefully asserted the belief that, as Isaac Asimov put it, “my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.” It is no coincidence that esteemed statistician Nate Silver found education level to be the critical factor in predicting support for Trump.
To be clear, there is no shame in being ignorant or uneducated. Every person is ignorant about one subject or another. If ignorance is a vice, then we are all guilty. What is a failing is to relish in ignorance, to treat it as superior, to resent and vilify the knowledge of those who are informed. Our civilization— nay, our entire existence as a species — is contingent on the belief that certain aspects of our reality can be objectively known. Without this foundation, there is naught but chaos.
America will always remain engaged in a number of philosophical contentions: liberalism vs. conservatism, socialism vs. capitalism, patriarchy vs. feminism, racial equality vs. white supremacy, and more. But the battle that supersedes and envelops all of these is knowledge vs. ignorance. And perhaps for the first time in our country’s history, ignorance is winning. Through resounding victories in 2010, 2014, and 2016, Republicans and their crusade against knowledge have amassed total control of power at nearly every level of government.
We may be past the point of no return. The inmates are running the asylum.
To be continued in Part 2.
