Laughing at Criminals
Roger Berkowitz
Hannah Arendt ends her final published interview, given to Roger Errera in 1973, talking about a quotation by Bertolt Brecht from the notes to his play, “The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui.” Brecht’s play, written in 1941, satirizes Hitler’s rise to power through the tale of a Chicago Mobster who corners the market in Cauliflower with ruthless violence. Brecht writes about his play:
“The great political criminals must be exposed and exposed especially to laughter. They are not great political criminals, but people who permitted great political crimes, which is something entirely different. The failure of his enterprise does not indicate that Hitler was an idiot.”
The thought that “Hitler was an idiot,” Arendt adds, was simply a prejudice of all those who opposed him prior to him seizing power. That he was a great leader is also a mistake. Neither is Hitler a great man nor an idiot. He was a small-time crook who became a great crook. As Brecht continues:
“If the ruling classes permit a small crook to become a great crook, he is not entitled to a privileged position in our view of history. That is, the fact that he became a great crook and that what he does has great consequences does not add to his stature. One may state that tragedy deals with the sufferings of mankind in a less serious way than comedy.”
Donald Trump is a small-time crook whom the ruling classes have permitted to become a medium-time crook. He is well-known for using and abusing the legal system to pressure business associates and for abusing small contractors by refusing to pay his bills. Since he has become President and now a former President, he has had two civil court verdicts against him and has succeeded in delaying three criminal trials, including the most important one in Georgia, where he is accused of blatantly trying to coerce the Republican Secretary of State to steal the election. The one criminal trial he could not postpone was the least important and the most controversial, resting on a novel legal theory. But even here a jury of Trump’s peers has found him guilty of falsifying business records with the intent of defrauding the electorate.
Trump now joins his former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon, former campaign co-chairs Rick Gates and Paul Manafort, former trade official Peter Navarro, former campaign advisor George Papadopoulos, and confidant and lobbyist Roger Stone who have all been convicted of felonies. We now know: Trump is a small-time crook who surrounds himself with other crooks. He is a quintessential mobster, not trying to corner the market in cauliflower, but to intimidate those he has slept with or raped, to steal classified records to feed his own ego, and to seek to steal an election that he lost — again, likely, to salve his ego which simply cannot accept that he is a loser.
It is obvious to anyone with eyes that former President Trump will bend and even break the law to satisfy his whims. He is a small-time crook. The question before us is whether we will allow Trump to become a great crook with tragic consequences for the American Republic.
It is impossible to know what a future President Trump would do. Trump is not someone known for saying what he means. And yet, there are clear indications that a second Trump presidency would be qualitatively different and more damaging to the constitutional, legal, and democratic norms of the United States. Trump’s bitter vengefulness, his promised attacks on the judiciary, his open defense of violence, his refusal to accept the results of the election, and his threats to those who are disloyal or oppose him all suggest that a second Trump presidency would lead the country down the path to tyranny. Most recently, Trump’s willingness to attack the jurors, the judge, and the institution of the rule of law in order to promote himself as a victim presages a second term that would be a frontal attack on the institutions and norms that have made America a land of freedom and security.
At the end of the interview, Errera asks Arendt what she thinks about literary and poetic attempts to humanize Nazi leaders, to show their inner struggles, to justify them? And Arendt answers:
“It shows that what happened once can happen again, and this indeed, I believe, is entirely true. You see, tyranny has been discovered very early, and identified very early as an enemy. Still, it has never in any way prevented any tyrant from becoming a tyrant. It has not prevented Nero, and it has not prevented Caligula. And the cases of Nero and Caligula have not prevented an even closer example of what the massive intrusion of criminality can mean for the political process.”
The massive intrusion of criminality that Arendt was thinking about in 1973 included — as she outlined in a speech given two years later in 1975 — the break-in and scandal around Watergate, the crisis of McCarthyism, and the “destruction of a reliable and devoted civil service.” All of this along with the defeat in Vietnam, rampant inflation and urban decay amidst the refusal to own up to the economic crises in the country, the bankruptcy of New York City, and the rise of American imperialism could lead, she worried, to the end of the American Republic.
It was unlikely, Arendt believed, that pure totalitarianism would emerge in the United States. Aware of the dangers of totalitarianism, public opinion in the United States, she saw, was not prepared to condone mass murder, camps, and terror. And yet, writing in the wake of the blatant lying in Vietnam, the burglaries and cover-ups of Watergate, and the Red Scare witch hunts of Senator Joseph McCarthy, Arendt saw that American public opinion appeared ready to condone “all political transgressions short of murder.” In other words, if “lying as a way of life” might not support the kinds of criminality evidenced in totalitarian states, it might serve to obfuscate and justify a lower level of criminality in a declining American Republic.
Distinctions are important. Donald Trump is not Adolf Hitler and the threat he poses is most likely not the rise of totalitarianism or genocide. Tyranny is not the same thing as totalitarianism and democratic societies can survive short periods of dictatorship or tyranny. So long as periods of tyranny are followed by the restoration of democratic norms and the strengthening of institutions, tyranny itself need not be the end of a democratic political system. Thus, it is not necessarily the case that a Trump presidency means the end of democracy. It may even be that the emergence of a Trump tyranny could be the spur that inspires Americans to re-commit themselves to their freedoms and to re-enter the public sphere to fight for their freedoms. It is possible that a true crisis of democracy may be what is needed to re-energize American democracy. But it is also possible that the rise of a tyrannical Trump presidency would be a dangerous and potentially fatal step in the continued corruption and unraveling of the foundation of freedom represented by the American Republican tradition.
It is shocking how ready mainstream politicians and business people are today to obfuscate and justify Trump’s “lying as a way of life.” This has been going on for years as Republican politicians, especially those who know how dangerous Trump is and say so in private, have refused to condemn him and isolate him because they hold out the hope that his movement can be controlled or mainstreamed and made to benefit the Republican Party, their own careers, and their vision of the United States. Even after January 6th, Mitch McConnell refused to vote to impeach then President Trump,hoping that Trump would fade into the background and that his supporters could be incorporated into the Republican Party. Nikki Haley, after witnessing Trump’s mobster-like behavior and warning how dangerous he would be as President, has decided to endorse him for a second term because she hopes to run for President in four years and believes she cannot run and win in the Republican Party if she does not fall in line behind him.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis — who Trump mocked and derided, is one of those who is intent on justifying and glorifying the criminal Trump, easing his path to becoming a great political criminal. After the verdict, DeSantis tweeted:
“Today’s verdict represents the culmination of a legal process that has been bent to the political will of the actors involved: a leftist prosecutor, a partisan judge and a jury reflective of one of the most liberal enclaves in America — all in an effort to ‘get’ Donald Trump.”
This message was retweeted positively by hedge fund hero and recent Harvard University gadfly Bill Ackman as well as by Tesla founder and CEO Elon Musk. They are part of the class of powerful enablers, who are now kissing Trump’s ring and seeking to justify his presidential ambitions. Ackman’s tweet aimed for high-minded neutrality:
“I think any objective person would have to agree with @GovRonDeSantis here.”
One can complain that the New York District Attorney was out to get Trump — and that is not wrong. One can complain that the judge in the case was partisan, but that is harder to accept but arguable. But what is simply wrong is to say that the jury was partisan. True, the jury comes from New York City, a liberal city. But the jurors were selected from 200 people and partisan jurors were struck. One juror was “A man who works in investment banking, follows Twitter as well as Truth Social posts from Trump and said, “I don’t have any beliefs that might prevent me from being fair or impartial.” Another is “A woman who is a physical therapist who likes running and tennis and listening to podcasts on sports and faith.” A third is “A man who lives on the Upper East Side and works as [an] attorney as a civil litigator. He enjoys spending time in the outdoors and gets his news from The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post and the Washington Post.” You can read about all 12 jurors here. You can not objectively or impartially say that they were partisan hacks out to get the former President.
The point is, as Akhil Reed Amar writes, the jury was composed of 12 ordinary citizens, not selected by President Biden or even George Soros. They were selected partly by the former President’s own attorneys. And it was these “12 ordinary citizens, not Biden, Soros or Merchan, who unanimously pronounced Trump guilty on 34 felony counts.” As Amar continues:
In fact, the Trump trial shows why juries have long been considered an important anti-corruption device. A sitting judge — one person, known to future litigants long in advance — is in theory easy enough to bribe. But does Trump mean to imply that all 12 of the jurors, none of whom was known in advance, were paid off by Biden or Soros? How? A judge might be tempted to kiss the hand of the state government that feeds him or, in the case of a federal judge, the president who nominated her in the past and might promote her in the future. Not so a jury.
If the jury had exonerated the former President, as it very well might have, it is likely that Trump would have praised the jury and the jury system. His willingness to attack the jurors and juries is not founded in principle but in need and the need driving Trump now is the demolition of the system that is trying to operate according to fundamental notions of legality, truth, and common sense. As Trump’s crimes and lies become bigger and more threatening, the system will have to counter them and he will have to set himself against the system in its entirety. We are seeing this happen. And yet, still, those who hope to benefit from a Trump Presidency are willing to risk the American republican tradition for the promise of some political or economic benefit. Some may, no doubt, dislike President Biden and the Democrats. They may, for good reasons, worry about the power of the anti-colonial, antisemitic, and anti-capitalist left. These are legitimate political worries. But to delude oneself that supporting Trump in his attempt to discredit American institutions of democracy and justice is “smart” is to open the door that might allow Trump to become what he is not: a great criminal.
