Ever since the Trump phenomenon began, we have been waiting for his Face in the Crowd moment—the big reveal when a hot mic catches the populist demagogue blabbing his true feelings for the American people writ large.
We are all Patricia Neal after having switched on the broadcast, screaming, "Talk! Talk, damn you!" Show the people the true face behind the con! Show us what we knew all along—that you care about no one other than yourself, that you have nothing but contempt and loathing for anyone halt or unwell, anyone with less power and money than you!
And then he does it. And does it again. And nothing happens.
He mocks people with disabilities. He denigrates a political rival for having been captured and tortured for five years as a prisoner of war. He disrespects the father of a slain marine because of his religion. None of it registers; at least not in a lasting way.
So, when the Atlantic ran its report from four unnamed sources saying that Trump described deceased American veterans as "losers" and "suckers"—while visiting a military cemetery—none of us thought it would mean a whole lot. It could too easily be consigned to the pile of probably-true-but-unproven stories attributed to anonymous sources "with first-hand knowledge of the matter."
And—odious as the comments were—it was not totally clear how they were worse than remarks he has already made in public...
But then—something odd happened. The story didn't just disappear. Four whole days later, it is still front-page news. That has got to be a record for the news cycle in the Trump-era, when even a global pandemic struggles to keep its hold on our attention. Right-wing outlets are confirming the underlying reporting. Trump himself is at pains to deny the account, rather than simply brushing it aside.
It occurs to me that we may be witnessing one of those turnings of public consciousness that we have witnessed before in the careers of demagogues. At some point, they try to bully the wrong person, and their fortunes suddenly change.
Think back, I ask you, to Joe McCarthy's career as a carnivalesque rabble-rouser. People felt many of the same things about him then that we now do about Trump. For a long time, his ascent appeared unstoppable. No one was willing to question his methods for fear of being tarred as Communist themselves.
People asked the same question then as we do now: why do the mainstream Republicans not do more to put the brakes on him? Surely they know better—so why this moral cowardice? It seems that McCarthy can do anything, insult and accuse anyone, and get away without consequences: just as we say of Trump today.
But eventually, McCarthy did hit a target bigger than himself. He tired to apply his method to the U.S. military. And that is where the tide began to shift against him. This is when we had the Army-McCarthy hearings, with their famous lines: "Have you no sense of decency, Sir?"
It is striking to me that in Trump's case too, the point at which the lock-step right-wing defense of his action is breaking concerns an insult to the armed forces. If Trump up to now has gotten away with demeaning people, these have largely been members of constituencies whom he does not particularly want or need to keep in his column—people who can't vote, people outside the dominant culture, people with less social power. The same was true of McCarthy.
Going after veterans and people in the military was—for both men—a much more politically dangerous proposition.
There is a basic unfairness in this that those on the left cannot help but point out. Granted that no one should insult wounded and disabled veterans and POWs, or speak ill of the dead, whatever one thinks of the justice of a larger armed conflict. The outrage that has greeted Trump's reported comments is surely justified, from any political perspective.
But many leftists will no doubt ask why this transgression should be weighed so much more heavily in the balance than Trump's many repulsive comments about women, immigrants, Muslims, asylum-seekers; his Trans military ban and regulation allowing discrimination in access to health care against Trans people; his Muslim Ban; his racist dog-roaring about affordable housing, and so on. Why should the military be granted special rights?
So it was with McCarthy and the Left as well.
I recall Noam Chomsky in an interview talking about how, as a young man, he had watched the Army-McCarthy hearings with something almost like sympathy for Joe—this because he was put off by the grandstanding hypocrisy of the whole affair. The Establishment had been perfectly happy to cozy up to McCarthy up to then—so long as he was picking on those weaker than himself—those unable to fight back. It was only when he threatened the military top brass that his circus was finally brought to an end.
Chomsky obviously had a point. At the same time, however, this seems like the kind of concern that is only possible to entertain in retrospect, once the beast has been defeated. It was no doubt much harder in the moment when McCarthy was still rampaging to care very much the grounds on which his campaign was ultimately indicted—the precise reason why the public finally turned against him, and whether those reasons were the best possible ones that could be found.
Those of us living through history in the present tense don't have the luxury of expecting full poetic justice. Sometimes, evil men are brought low, tyrants overthrown, for reasons unconnected with justice—or even for no reason at all. That does not mean we cannot reap the moral gains from having their reign come to an end.
The Salvadoran poet Roque Dalton once penned an account of the demise of one of his country's most violent dictators, who was ultimately killed by a robber with no political leanings. Dalton has the unintended assassin pray: God forgive me/ out of a thief's simple rage/ I did what many others should have done/ out of their need to save their honor/or for the good of the country more than thirty years ago. (Graham/Pines/Unger trans.)
Perhaps it will be the case that Trump's political career ultimately unwinds not because of his racism, sexism, or Islamophobia, but because of this country's sense that the dignity of people who died as U.S. soldiers must be held sacred and inviolable. It is of course far from the only reason that he should be voted out of office. It may not even be the best reason (though it is a damn good reason in itself).
If the military ultimately provides Trump's political undoing, as they did McCarthy's, perhaps we on the left will say—with the benefit of hindsight—that they only did for late and insufficient reasons what many others should have done before them for the sake of their honor or the good of the country.
But no matter. We do not get to choose the instruments of deliverance. May we be so lucky as to reach a point in history —some blessed after—from which we can cast a backward glance, and ask ourselves whether Trump's repellant comment about "losers" and "suckers" was the only or the best basis on which public opinion should indict him.
The task for now is to get to that "after"—to do all in our power, with whatever unlikely allies we have, to ensure such an "after" still exists for generations to come, in whose eyes we may be judged.
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