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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   29203 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 6, 2025

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Matt Yglesias made a good point about Trump and authoritarianism:

But here’s what worries me. Nobody agrees with the presidential candidate that they prefer about everything. It is completely normal and appropriate to vote for someone with some reservations or points of criticism. If, all things considered, you preferred Trump to Harris, notwithstanding Trump’s election lies, encouragement of violence, and promises to let the perpetrators off the hook, then that’s your right. There were plenty of other issues in the mix in 2020 as well. What I see, though, from the billionaires who disavowed Trump only to come back to his side, isn’t people saying, “That really was an awful day and I hope he doesn’t follow through on the pardons, but I decided that taxes and energy are more important.” Instead, they’ve gone totally silent on the points of criticism.

And there’s an alarming doublethink about this.

If I were to say, “It’s irresponsible to back Trump regardless of your views on taxes and energy because he’s an authoritarian menace,” these people would say I’m being a hysterical lib.

But if I were to say, “It’s fine to vote for Trump while still strongly disagreeing with what he did around 1/6, I’d just like to hear you say that in public,” the response would be that everyone knows it’s best to avoid Trump’s bad side.

If you’re not willing to voice criticism of the president, even while generally supporting him, because you’re afraid of retaliation, that seems at least a little bit like Trump is an authoritarian menace. I have concerns! And what I would love more than anything is for Trump supporters in the business world or at conservative nonprofits to set my mind at ease, not by arguing with me about whether Trump is an authoritarian menace, but by showing me that they don’t fear him and can offer pointed, vocal criticism of his conduct and strong condemnation of these potential pardons.

That’s how pluralistic politics works: You agree with people when you agree with them, but you don’t shy away from disagreeing when you disagree. And to a considerable extent, the fate of the country hinges more on what right-of-center people choose to say and do if and when Trump abuses his powers than on what anyone in the opposition does.

The article starts with examples of conservatives criticizing Trump in the wake of the 2021 riot and says "...I also respect (or at least understand) the decision of those who’ve decided they care more about other things than about Trump’s low character and basic unfitness for office. But what disturbs me is the extent to which the entire conservative movement has retconned not just the events of four years ago, but their own reactions to those events, such that these days, to be disturbed by them is considered some form of lib hysteria." At what point are Trump's allies tacitly seconding accusations that Trump is an authoritarian and his "movement" a cult of personality, by treating him as though the accusations are true?

Edit: I think discussion of whether or not the 2021 riot should be a factor in the 2024 election is missing the point. Substitute whatever criticisms you think are warranted; Yglesias's observation of doublethink isn't dependent on people not making a specific criticism, it's that refusal to criticize someone for their history of at least failing to avoid the appearance of authoritarian or corrupt behavior can be a tacit admission of fear that the person is, in fact, authoritarian or corrupt. The question I asked is the bounds of when we should make that inference.

I really, genuinely, sincerely, in my heart of hearts, don't think 1/6 was that big of a deal. The demand for a Threat to Democracy outstripped supply, so the media spent 4 years trying desperately to turn a molehill into a mountain. The fact that it apparently didn't move the needle at all during the 2024 elections just goes to show that most Americans also don't think that 1/6 was that big of a deal.

The key fact about the 1/6 riot is that there was never any path by which they could have actually usurped the government. The US Government does not operate on Capture the Flag rules. It doesn't matter how many people trespass in which government buildings. Taking over a government usually requires cooperation from an armed force like the military, police, a paramilitary militia, an intelligence agency, or something along those lines. 1/6 had some unarmed old people milling about in the capital. An actual Threat to Democracy must have the ability to actually Threaten the Democracy, as in there must be some chance of damaging it in some way. 1/6 was just one of a series of riots in that time period, and not a particularly damaging or violent one at that. The fact that it was targeted at elected officials instead of random innocent civilians makes it, if anything, less morally fraught than many of the other riots that took place in the preceding months.

I definitely agree with this. I think that calling the Jan 6 riot a "coup" or similar terms is pure sensationalism. It is even worse when you have the direct contrast of other, similar riots all throughout 2020. The very same people condemning Jan 6 condoned those riots, if not outright approved of them. I try to be charitable, but I genuinely can find no charitable explanation of this double standard which seems plausibly true to me.

It's so weird to me, because it's like a minimum coup. Not even a minimum viable coup, because it clearly isn't. It's not doing your enemy a small injury, it's like slapping your enemy in the face with the broad of your sword, then running away. Are you trying to start shit or not? It's like they themselves didn't know if they wanted to start shit or not. Like a child's drawing of a coup: all the parts are there, the march, the violence, the fraudulent scheme, but they're just executed with zero skill or coherence, basically at random. I think that's why it causes so much division. It's like your neighboring country rolls a tank over the border, but it's made of cardboard, plops out one sad shell and falls apart. Now you don't even know if you're supposed to be at war.

It's a coup done by a person who just doesn't know how to do one. So do you let it count?

There's also just kinda a mess when the question of what extent Trump was actually involved.

Contemporaneously in 2021, there were quite a lot of allegations that Trump and close associates were deeply integrated into the planning and execution phases of the riot itself, to the point where the Trump campaign was supposedly giving out pdfs with specific movements to specific individuals. Into the next couple years, we had people testify that he got into John Wick-esque battles with the Secret Service, that he'd called off military assistance to capitol officers. It's still possible that's the case!

But what's actually been proven is that he gave a pretty dumb speech, and his campaign authorized the 'alternative' 'fake' elector slates, and he called the governor of Georgia. I'd argue that this is an impeachable offense, and that in a sane impeachment hearing we could start pulling at the threads of those more serious allegations to see if any justify a conviction. They didn't -- the impeachment hearings were a political joke even by the low standards set by recent competition -- and as a result we never even got to the question of whether such a conviction would be justified or whether such a conviction should include future prohibition from office.

I don't know whether his involvement genuinely ended with the speech, but if some there's a lot of underpants gnomes involved between that speech and the riot itself.

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