Republicans Aren't Hypocrites (They're So, So Much Worse)

If you’re like me, you’ve found this to be a particularly infuriating news cycle. Especially considering that just a few days ago, Trump’s campaign advisor and long time friend Roger Stonewas indicted and will (FSM willing) will spend the rest of his life in jail.

We need just one more for the hat trick.

Meanwhile, Trump has all but surrendered, groveling at the feet of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, with Republicans now warning him against the use of a National Emergency.

A reminder that now unemployed Paul Ryan was hailed by the media as a boy wonder.

So what’s there to be upset over (especially extrapolating Roger Stone’s prison photo from Paul Manafort’s, and daydreaming about the future Democratic nominee down on the border thunder dunking on Trump in an open field with no wall)?

Democratic Governor Ralph Northam of Virginia was revealed to have had a shockingly racist past. Trump announced plans to withdraw from the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty with Russia. Roger Stone, with his seven indictments, is given a hero’s welcome.

All of these stories in a vacuum range from maddening to deeply disturbing.  Republican behavior makes them so much worse.

Ralph Northam will likely not survive politically.  Democrats have universally called for his resignation.  And he should resign.  But calls for resignation are also coming from the party of the Ku Klux Klan.

This newspaper actually happened.

Just a few days ago Republicans refused to call for Steve King’s resignation for advocating white supremacy (in year 2019 of the Common Era).  Republicans blocked any real investigation into serious allegations that Brett Kavanaugh raped multiple women right around the same time Ralph Northam was posing for that yearbook photo. And this was followed by Trump, an avowed racist, attacking Northam for being racist.  Ed Krassenstein has an excellent twitter thread documenting the extent of (what would appear to be the maddening) hypocrisy of Trump calling anyone else a racist.

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As President Trump attacks Northam for being Racist, as he should, let's all remember that Trump is a racist too! (Thread)● He called for a Mexican Judge to recuse himself in a case against Trump University.● Referred to White Supremacists as "very fine people".

— Ed Krassenstein (@EdKrassen) February 3, 2019

There are no Republican calls for Trump to resign over his statements. Or Steve King. Or Brett Kavanaugh.

Meanwhile, anyone old enough to remember the 1980’s remembers that the Party of Ronald Regan also claimed to be the Party of single-handedly winning the cold war. The confrontation of Mikhail Gorbachev in Reykjavik and getting the Soviets to knuckle under is a major part of Regan hagiography. 

Believe it or not, this photo was widely used by Regan-obsessed corporate media of the day to demonstrate Regan’s strength against the Soviets through wardrobe choice🙄.

Regan did sign the INF Treaty in 1987. This was followed by START I in 1991 and START II in 1994, which unarguably made the world a better place (a rare feat for the Republican Party). All the while, Democrats were painted as too weak to negotiate with the Russians.  This was the centerpiece of the Republican attacks on Democratic nominee Vice President Walter Mondale during the 1984 Presidential campaign, which American Dad parodied ad absurdum in The Best Christmas Story Never (S02E09).

In an alternate reality, Walter Mondale, upon being elected, hands over complete control of the United States to the Soviet Premier 47 days into his Presidency, and then, in a final act of subservience, kisses the Premiere’s boot in the Oval Office. 12 years after this episode aired, just replace Mondale with Trump and Family Guy is an oracle.

And just a week ago Friday, Robert Mueller nabbed the latest player in the Trump campaign with (a luck number) 7 indictments, all pointing in the direction of collusion with Russia.  Yes, it was comic book villain Roger Stone’s time in the barrel.

Yes.

This led to an interesting reaction from the party of law and order. Lindsay Graham demanded to know why Roger Stone was arrested in the typical by the book manner where authorities believe the suspect may destroy evidence and may be armed and dangerous.  Or as one Republican said (with at least feigned sincerity) on local talk radio: “Why was Roger Stone arrested like a common black man?”

Heck, one of the three individuals in the photo with Stone, above, engineered the famous Willie Horton attack on Michael Dukakis.  Lee Atwater said that by the time they were done with Dukakis, people were going to think Willie Horton was Dukakis’s running mate.  Trump himself notably pretends to be the heir of Nixonian Law and Order politics, although he seems to have an awful lot of criminals in his administration.

All the indictments. So far.

Trump can’t pardon Manafort, but I have no doubt he will try to pardon Stone. He already pardoned Arpaio. The range of misconduct in Trump’s orbit is simply staggering.

Again, this is all from just last week.  We haven’t even touched Republican treatment of sexual misconduct. Or Republican treatment of the deficit. And when we start to gaze back over the past five decades, back to the moment where the modern parties took shape, the expanse of apparent hypocrisy is staggering.  A brief search of hypocrisy here would reveal thousands of stories. In fact, I found 747 from the last year alone.  It’s impossible not to be infuriated by the shear magnitude of malfeasance. 

Even 700 years ago, Dante Dante Alighieri felt our modern rage. In his Divine Comedy, hypocrites are condemned to the 8th circle of Hell, below seemingly worse offense. Here is an excellent explanation why:

The offenses of circles 8 and 9--the lowest two circles of hell--all fall under the rubric of fraud, a form of malice — as Virgil explains in Inferno 11.22-7 — unique to human beings and therefore more displeasing to God than sins of concupiscence and violence…

But are Republicans really hypocrites?

Hypocrisy is the practice of claiming to have moral standards or beliefs to which one's own behavior does not conform.  Republicans make no such claim.  In fact, they do the exact opposite.  The Republican Party in the age of Trump vacillates between celebrating and just hand waving immorality of their own. 

So if Republicans aren’t hypocrites, then what are they?

I argue they’re something much, much worse; they’re conservatives.

Probably the best description of Republican Party conservatism comes from Frank Wilhoit, and was fit into a single tweet by Jeet Heer.

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Frank Wilhoit: “Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition …There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.” This seems increasingly true.

— Jeet Heer (@HeerJeet) May 31, 2018

Completely antithetical to American notions of equal protection under the law first promised by the Declaration of Independence and then guaranteed by the 14th Amendment, conservatism in the Wilhoit interpretation believes that laws only exist to punish wrongdoing of the out group and to protect the in group from accountability. Would you be surprised to learn that Trump Republicans want to repeal the 14th Amendment to the Constitution? Really.

When viewed through the Wilhoit interpretation, much of the modern Republican Party begins to make sense; abortion, the deficit, gun rights, and so on.  It also explains why lower income white supremacists and evangelical xtians found such a comfortable home in the Republican Party, a Party that is antithetical to their economic interests.

So what do we do?

You demonstrate the laws of the United States apply equally to everyone.  Trump, his family, and his friends aren’t entitled to special treatment because they’re rich and white. You drag them. Democrats are already getting ready to subpoena Trump’s taxes. And Elijah Cummings is getting ready to rain Holy Hell down upon them.

Well, you don’t stop there.

There is less than two years until a new Democratic President can be sworn in. Nancy Pelosi gets it now. It would’ve been so easy to give Trump a little money for his wall out of fear of negative consequences of the shutdown. The wall will never be built. Instead she broke Trump on purpose. But Nancy Pelosi famously stated we need to look forward not back upon the criminality of the last Republican Administration.  There is no statue of limitations on War Crimes or Crimes Against Humanity.

And you keep on going.

The next Democratic President will appoint a new attorney general and others. Trump is famously in trouble for firing an FBI Director and an Attorney General who would not do his bidding. But who will the next Democratic nominee hire?

I am positive that the nomination process set to begin will be fraught with petty fights over nuances of single payer plans. If we win the Senate in 2020, we will get something to expand coverage. But I’m more interested in prosecutorial strategy.  Will we empty our prisons of people, exclusively poor and often minority, serving sentences for nonviolent drug offenses? Will our new attorney generals and agency directors have a mindset of accountability for the rich and powerful, and their foreign allies?

Or will we be looking forward and not back, again?