Friday
The House may have impeached Donald Trump Wednesday night, but Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank has a point when he says that Trumpism prevailed. That’s because Trump has managed to turn most of the GOP into a version of himself.
Republicans have, as I noted the other day, learned to love Big Brother.
Once upon a time, the GOP had some vestige of integrity. Once Republicans called out frauds and lies. Once South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham was saying, “I’m not going to try to get into the mind of Donald Trump because I don’t think there’s a whole lot of space there. I think he’s a kook. I think he’s crazy. I think he’s unfit for office.”
How much has changed! On Wednesday, Republicans were all but arguing that war is peace, slavery is freedom, and ignorance is strength. Milbank describes the scene:
Wednesday’s 10-hour impeachment debate on the House floor and the party-line vote that followed proved that Trump’s multiyear campaign against the truth — 15,000 lies and counting — has succeeded. Republicans, united, didn’t spend much time defending Trump on the (unfavorable) merits. Instead, in an appalling spectacle of mass projection, they took turns accusing Democrats of the very offenses Trump committed — with Trumpian language and disregard for reality.
Democrats are the ones, Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.) said, who committed a “stunning abuse of power.” Democrats are the ones, Rep. Tom Rice (R-S.C.) said, who “colluded with Russia and Ukraine.” Democrats are the ones, Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) said, who engaged in “the largest and most massive coverup of such a list of crimes against our country.” Democrats are the ones, Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) said, who committed an “assault on the Constitution.” Democrats are the ones, Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.) said, who are “interfering in America’s election.” Democrats are the ones, Rep. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) said, who “have dangerously shattered precedents.”
It was as though Alex Jones and Tucker Carlson had taken over the House floor. Even during the most solemn constitutional ritual, Republicans were auditioning for an audience of one — and outbidding each other with conspiracy theories in hopes of scoring a favorable tweet from the boss.
What does it take to turn former foes into cult worshippers? In 1984, Big Brother threatens Winston Smith with his deepest fear, which he correctly predicts will prove more powerful than love. Because Winston has a phobia about rats, the dictator fills a cage with starving rodents and straps them to his head. He has but to flip a lever and the rats will burrow into Winston’s face.
Winston’s love for Julia doesn’t stand a chance:
The circle of the mask was large enough now to shut out the vision of anything else. The wire door was a couple of hand-spans from his face. The rats knew what was coming now. One of them was leaping up and down, the other, an old scaly grandfather of the sewers, stood up, with his pink hands against the bars, and fiercely sniffed the air. Winston could see the whiskers and the yellow teeth. Again the black panic took hold of him. He was blind, helpless, mindless….
The mask was closing on his face. The wire brushed his cheek. And then–no, it was not relief, only hope, a tiny fragment of hope. Too late, perhaps too late. But he had suddenly understood that in the whole world there was just ONE person to whom he could transfer his punishment–ONE body that he could thrust between himself and the rats. And he was shouting frantically, over and over.
‘Do it to Julia! Do it to Julia! Not me! Julia! I don’t care what you do to her. Tear her face off, strip her to the bones. Not me! Julia! Not me!’
I’m not sure that Orwell proves anything useful here. Few people, I suspect, can stand up to torture or the prospect of hideous death. The GOP, however, does not have this excuse, which leads us to ask what has led to their Trump capitulation.
Do they fear the systematic ostracism that happens to those Republicans that stand up to the president? Do they fear Trump’s tweets and the tweets of his followers? Do they fear losing their seats in Congress? Do they fear a multicultural America, with white men no longer calling all the shots?
Or is something more nefarious at work? To explain what I have in mind, I turn to a rediscovered Harper’s article that appeared in August, 1941—which is to say, after Germany had invaded its neighbors but before Pearl Harbor. Many Americans (including Charles Lindbergh and Henry Ford) supported Hitler in those days, and Dorothy Thompson, imagining a cocktail party, tries to figure out which of the guests will “go Nazi” and which will resist. In other words, what personality types are susceptible to fascism.
Her conclusion is that those who don’t have a deep foundation or a strong sense of self are vulnerable to an autocrat’s blandishments:
Kind, good, happy, gentlemanly, secure people never go Nazi…. But the frustrated and humiliated intellectual, the rich and scared speculator, the spoiled son, the labor tyrant, the fellow who has achieved success by smelling out the wind of success—they would all go Nazi in a crisis.
Believe me, nice people don’t go Nazi. Their race, color, creed, or social condition is not the criterion. It is something in them.
Those who haven’t anything in them to tell them what they like and what they don’t–whether it is breeding, or happiness, or wisdom, or a code, however old-fashioned or however modern, go Nazi. It’s an amusing game. Try it at the next big party you go to.
If the current GOP had a deep core, it could resist Trumpism. Because it has been hollowed out and behaves as the wind behaves (to quote Eliot’s Hollow Men), it can be turned by an unscrupulous con man. Worse yet, it feels an exhilarating sense of power to be so turned. Suddenly it doesn’t have to worry about truth or responsibility or any of those factors that complicate our lives. It has only to talk and act like its dear leader.
At the end of 1984, Winston feels nothing so much as a deep sense of relief:
He gazed up at the enormous face. Forty years it had taken him to learn what kind of smile was hidden beneath the dark mustache. O cruel, needless misunderstanding! O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast! Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.
The House GOP has won the victory over itself and proved its love. Will Senate Republicans do the same?