Monday
Some political commentator (I can’t remember who) recently cited Bertolt Brecht’s “The Solution” when talking about progressives frustrated that people can’t see where their true interests lie. In his poem, Brecht ironically suggests replacing people who let us down with more amenable people. Here’s the poem:
The Solution
By Bertolt Brecht
After the uprising of the 17th June
The Secretary of the Writers Union
Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee
Stating that the people
Had forfeited the confidence of the government
And could win it back only
By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier
In that case for the government
To dissolve the people
And elect another?
The poem, which was not published until after Brecht’s death, was written following East Germany’s uprising of 1953, in which Germans resisted the Sovietization of their country. The uprising failed and it sounds like the Writers Union, which may have had Brecht as a member, tried then to ingratiate itself with the authoritarian regime. While Brecht moved from the United States to East Germany because he was hounded by the House Un-American Activities Committee, he called out authoritarianism wherever he saw it.
The mention of the Writers Union brings to mind Saturday’s White House Correspondents Dinner, where journalists subjected themselves to attacks from a president who makes no secret of his loathing of a free press. Instead of reacting when Trump attacked their CNN colleague Kaitlan Collins, however—he complained that she “never smiles” and compared her to transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney—they sat stony faced. By not booing or walking out of the room but simply shrugging—as they also did when Trump fantasized about running for an unconstitutional third term—they normalize appalling behavior.
When the president of the United States openly jokes about flouting the Constitution, that should be a five alarm fire. As historian Heather Cox Richardson wrote recently, Trump and those around him are not simply challenging laws and constitutional provisions. They are acting as if the Constitution doesn’t exist.
I use the word “normalize” because there’s a smart examination of the word in a novel I’m currently reading. In Patricia Lockwood’s No One Is Talking about This, an internet celebrity comments on how social media is sapping language of its power. At one point she writes,
“Don’t normalize it!!!!!” we shouted at each other. But all we were normalizing was the use of the word normalize, which sounded like the action of a ray gun wielded by a guy named Norm to make everyone around him Norm as well.
Trump supporters and Trump himself accuse anyone who reacts violently to the president of Trump Derangement Syndrome. Instead, they want us all to become Norm when we are in his presence.
Unfortunately, that is just what too many of the correspondents at the dinner did.
