What are the reasons behind the pervasive tendency among ostensibly anti-MAGA elites to accommodate authoritarian power and preemptively signal compliance with Trumpism?
I heard your interview with Tim Miller today, so glad I found your Substack as a result. Thank you for this! You now join my trifecta of go-to thinkers in this space, that includes Anne Applebaum and Timothy Snyder.
So much postmortem hand wringing after this election about the makeup of those who voted and why they did what they did. I want to hear more about the non-voters and what that tells us about this nightmare election.
This is an excellent discussion. You are right that elite leaders, both progressive & conservative, will not suffer. But ordinary Americans will suffer, and we need to work with them to stop Trump. So this is a good time to shift discussion to focus on the actual harms to millions of ordinary Americans that Trump's authoritarianism & reckless appointments are likely to bring. Sadly, it seems that millions of Americans do not understand the very real benefits they have been getting from having an effective, smoothly operating, complex modern government, with a deeply embedded career, non-corrupt civil service. Abstract talk about authoritarianism has not gotten through to them; the message has to be more concrete.
One obvious area to focus on is health care. Trump is making it clear that there will be no effective policing of conflicts of interest in his administration. and he is about to put a man who has interests in health insurance companies in charge of Medicare. Both Dr. Oz and Project 2025 want to replace traditional Medicare (much loved by many voters) with Medicare Advantage plans, though they cost the government more & provides less coverage. It is important that the press & critics point out at every opportunity how Trump's actions are at odds with his promises to protect people's health coverage. The talk needs to be about how choices Dr. Oz makes will determine exactly what kind of care seniors will be able to get.
Obviously, we should be concerned about what Trump may do to immigrants and his efforts to take revenge on those he perceives as enemies. But looking at his last term in office, one of the most destructive things he attempted was to repeal the ACA. That law benefited millions of Americans who didn't even understand the that he and the GOP posed a grave threat to them. It was the efforts of a relatively small group of Americans constantly lobbying Congress that saved the law. There were brave people -- handicapped, wheel chair bound people -- who slept out in all weather on Capitol Hill demonstrating to save the ACA. There was an organized campaign of letters, messages, & calls to members of Congress to save the law. Those were some of the heroes in the fight against Trump last time; people like them need to be supported now.
Meanwhile, the press & all of us how can talk with family & friends & whoever will listen have a role in educating our less well-informed fellow citizens. What matters now is to help as many Americans as possible understand the actual real harms that can come from a greedy authoritarian administration intent on destroying so many of the good things about our government that Americans take for granted - safe food & drugs; safe products; safe roads & air travel; the rule of law in all aspects of our lives from product liability to reliable insurance to building codes and more:; lack of childhood diseases; and so much more. We can all do something about that.
The only thing I would add to this—and it is, perhaps, tangential—is that Democrats have daddy issues. The moment a Republican shows the slightest bit of backbone, Dems fall all over him.* It doesn’t matter if he votes in lockstep with his conservative peers 99 times out of a 100 as long as he occasionally puts a little distance between himself and the rest of his party. John McCain has long been the exemplar here, but the Harris campaign inviting not one but two Cheneys into the fold may be the apotheosis. Dems are like toddlers who crave structure. Or closet masochists who secretly yearn to be punished. Or, like I say, people desperate for daddy to finally show his approval and say “I love you.”
*There are exceptions. No Dem, no matter how cravenly “centrist” is ever going to fall in love with Mitch McConnell or Lindsay Graham.
I am not only disappointed but very angry at elites who have decided for the millions who have no choice but to live as best we can while potentially being stripped of retirements, benefits, health care, etc. They have no right to legitimize the con man who will destroy as much of the Constitution as he possibly can before he dies or is run out of office because he won’t willingly go.
Thank you again Thomas for your words of wisdom & warning.
We need and deserve a better standard of leadership to confront the authoritarian threat. Polls continue to inform us that the majority of American voters want parties to work together and to maintain the values and ideals of our country.
Defending democracy is boring to too many--while I am a former elected official, friends tell me that I should forget about invites to holiday parties if I talk too much politics. I do understand.
But without local engagement, we may end up relying heavily on prominent individuals and institutions who remain unwilling or unable to model anything beyond compliance with the abnormal. This is abnormal --embrace of authoritarianism, misinformation, and rejection of democratic norms deviates from traditional core values of accountability, truth, and constitutional governance essential to a healthy democracy.
My struggle is trying to find a path. I have a conflict resolution background which emphasizes keeping connections, not humiliating folks, criticizing behaviors not people. How can I accomplish those goals--which I firmly agree with--when the Republicans have demonstrated that are operating in bad faith. They are motivated by power and have been ruthless in that aim.
I saw the sunrise of a black sun in 1980. That was when Ronald Regan became the POTUS. His dementia was the dark sunrise of this modern age. Do I blame him alone? Certainly not. His cohorts darkened the world with all the glamour of patriotism, flag waving, and emotional fireworks.
What Trump saw in his first bid for POTUS, was the underbelly of flag waving patriotism. He saw the hate, discontent, and pure rage of people who believed they were being marginalized in the name of democracy. Liberalism, to those people, was, and is corrosive to their own view of what America is supposed to be. Capitalizing on that, Trump saw his path to the White House paved with discontent, and a malevolence towards anything Liberal, or Democratic.
The easy conversion from anti-MAGA, to "Lets all just get along and be happy neighbors," is based on fear. The shark that is about to eat you can not be placated with your cooperation to be eaten. You can not appease a hungry (power hungry) predator by putting yourself on his dinner plate. You will simply be eaten, then disposed of.
Among all the threats the Trump Presidency and the MAGA Movement pose to democracy, freedom, and the rule of law, perhaps the most important--because potentially the most long lasting--is the normalization of deviance. The phrase "normalization of deviance" was made famous by Dianne Vaughan in her book on the Challenger Disaster. It refers to a process of accepting exceptions to the established norms or rules so frequently that the exception becomes the rule. (In the case of the Challenger, a contractor waived its standard of performance on the O rings so often that it became accepted practice to launch shuttles even though the O ring problem had not been solved--with disastrous results.)
Thomas has raised an extremely important question of the moment: Will we accept the breaches of established norms of democracy that the Trump Presidency will entail? If not, as Gale asks in this thread, how can we assert our rejection of that normalization of deviance? What can we do?
I intend to write a series of essays on this subject on my Substack, Together For Good. I'm also organizing lawyers to be ready to defend for free those lower-level civil servants that Trump has said he intends to harass and prosecute with FBI investigations, IRS audits, and criminal prosecutions.
You should learn about the norms we have and why they are important. Then organize locally to speak out against the erosion of norms (for example, by nominating wholly unqualified people to head government agencies). Write letters to the editor of your local newspaper. Organize a discussion group in your church, synagogue, mosque, or service club. Get involved in the Democratic Party to help stiffen the spines of potential appeasers. Don't concede. Keep Hope Alive!
Not by coincidence, I'm reading "Unheard Witness" by Ernst Hanfstaengl, associate of Hitler from 1920-1936. Every few pages I find myself stopping and rereading a paragraph in astonishment. America is not 1920-1945 Germany, and Trump is not Hitler (Hitler was much smarter, for one, and not in cognitive decline). Rhymes, not duplicates. But the similarities in the Nazi path, the interplay of personalities, power and social trends with what we are at the start of are notable.
Thanks for bringing this book to our attention, Greg. The parallels to the early years of the Nazi regime are striking. The original is out of print (and expensive). There is a newer version for less money with the title, The Unknown Hitler : Notes from the Young Nazi Party.
A thing that scares me (although I live in Europe and am less directly impacted) is that this is the first article I've read since the election that correctly identifies Mr Trump as the President-ELECT rather than prematurely referring to him as simply "the President" as if he were currently in office.
We have a strange custom here of using some titles both when they are in or have previously held that office. So he can still be referred to as President Trump in many cases, but also President-Elect.
Tolerating intolerance is about to kill democracy.
I heard your interview with Tim Miller today, so glad I found your Substack as a result. Thank you for this! You now join my trifecta of go-to thinkers in this space, that includes Anne Applebaum and Timothy Snyder.
So very much agree, I feel ill just watching this all unfold
It is the need to cling to normalcy that repels voters. So until they figure out how to fight they will keep failing. Beyond infuriating.
So much postmortem hand wringing after this election about the makeup of those who voted and why they did what they did. I want to hear more about the non-voters and what that tells us about this nightmare election.
Thank you for this pompous elaborate "response to recent awesome events."
It is like every day is Christmas Morning...
Happy Thanksgiving
This is an excellent discussion. You are right that elite leaders, both progressive & conservative, will not suffer. But ordinary Americans will suffer, and we need to work with them to stop Trump. So this is a good time to shift discussion to focus on the actual harms to millions of ordinary Americans that Trump's authoritarianism & reckless appointments are likely to bring. Sadly, it seems that millions of Americans do not understand the very real benefits they have been getting from having an effective, smoothly operating, complex modern government, with a deeply embedded career, non-corrupt civil service. Abstract talk about authoritarianism has not gotten through to them; the message has to be more concrete.
One obvious area to focus on is health care. Trump is making it clear that there will be no effective policing of conflicts of interest in his administration. and he is about to put a man who has interests in health insurance companies in charge of Medicare. Both Dr. Oz and Project 2025 want to replace traditional Medicare (much loved by many voters) with Medicare Advantage plans, though they cost the government more & provides less coverage. It is important that the press & critics point out at every opportunity how Trump's actions are at odds with his promises to protect people's health coverage. The talk needs to be about how choices Dr. Oz makes will determine exactly what kind of care seniors will be able to get.
Obviously, we should be concerned about what Trump may do to immigrants and his efforts to take revenge on those he perceives as enemies. But looking at his last term in office, one of the most destructive things he attempted was to repeal the ACA. That law benefited millions of Americans who didn't even understand the that he and the GOP posed a grave threat to them. It was the efforts of a relatively small group of Americans constantly lobbying Congress that saved the law. There were brave people -- handicapped, wheel chair bound people -- who slept out in all weather on Capitol Hill demonstrating to save the ACA. There was an organized campaign of letters, messages, & calls to members of Congress to save the law. Those were some of the heroes in the fight against Trump last time; people like them need to be supported now.
Meanwhile, the press & all of us how can talk with family & friends & whoever will listen have a role in educating our less well-informed fellow citizens. What matters now is to help as many Americans as possible understand the actual real harms that can come from a greedy authoritarian administration intent on destroying so many of the good things about our government that Americans take for granted - safe food & drugs; safe products; safe roads & air travel; the rule of law in all aspects of our lives from product liability to reliable insurance to building codes and more:; lack of childhood diseases; and so much more. We can all do something about that.
The only thing I would add to this—and it is, perhaps, tangential—is that Democrats have daddy issues. The moment a Republican shows the slightest bit of backbone, Dems fall all over him.* It doesn’t matter if he votes in lockstep with his conservative peers 99 times out of a 100 as long as he occasionally puts a little distance between himself and the rest of his party. John McCain has long been the exemplar here, but the Harris campaign inviting not one but two Cheneys into the fold may be the apotheosis. Dems are like toddlers who crave structure. Or closet masochists who secretly yearn to be punished. Or, like I say, people desperate for daddy to finally show his approval and say “I love you.”
*There are exceptions. No Dem, no matter how cravenly “centrist” is ever going to fall in love with Mitch McConnell or Lindsay Graham.
I refer to the Biden administration as the Vichy government
I am not only disappointed but very angry at elites who have decided for the millions who have no choice but to live as best we can while potentially being stripped of retirements, benefits, health care, etc. They have no right to legitimize the con man who will destroy as much of the Constitution as he possibly can before he dies or is run out of office because he won’t willingly go.
Thank you again Thomas for your words of wisdom & warning.
We need and deserve a better standard of leadership to confront the authoritarian threat. Polls continue to inform us that the majority of American voters want parties to work together and to maintain the values and ideals of our country.
Defending democracy is boring to too many--while I am a former elected official, friends tell me that I should forget about invites to holiday parties if I talk too much politics. I do understand.
But without local engagement, we may end up relying heavily on prominent individuals and institutions who remain unwilling or unable to model anything beyond compliance with the abnormal. This is abnormal --embrace of authoritarianism, misinformation, and rejection of democratic norms deviates from traditional core values of accountability, truth, and constitutional governance essential to a healthy democracy.
My struggle is trying to find a path. I have a conflict resolution background which emphasizes keeping connections, not humiliating folks, criticizing behaviors not people. How can I accomplish those goals--which I firmly agree with--when the Republicans have demonstrated that are operating in bad faith. They are motivated by power and have been ruthless in that aim.
M
I saw the sunrise of a black sun in 1980. That was when Ronald Regan became the POTUS. His dementia was the dark sunrise of this modern age. Do I blame him alone? Certainly not. His cohorts darkened the world with all the glamour of patriotism, flag waving, and emotional fireworks.
What Trump saw in his first bid for POTUS, was the underbelly of flag waving patriotism. He saw the hate, discontent, and pure rage of people who believed they were being marginalized in the name of democracy. Liberalism, to those people, was, and is corrosive to their own view of what America is supposed to be. Capitalizing on that, Trump saw his path to the White House paved with discontent, and a malevolence towards anything Liberal, or Democratic.
The easy conversion from anti-MAGA, to "Lets all just get along and be happy neighbors," is based on fear. The shark that is about to eat you can not be placated with your cooperation to be eaten. You can not appease a hungry (power hungry) predator by putting yourself on his dinner plate. You will simply be eaten, then disposed of.
Among all the threats the Trump Presidency and the MAGA Movement pose to democracy, freedom, and the rule of law, perhaps the most important--because potentially the most long lasting--is the normalization of deviance. The phrase "normalization of deviance" was made famous by Dianne Vaughan in her book on the Challenger Disaster. It refers to a process of accepting exceptions to the established norms or rules so frequently that the exception becomes the rule. (In the case of the Challenger, a contractor waived its standard of performance on the O rings so often that it became accepted practice to launch shuttles even though the O ring problem had not been solved--with disastrous results.)
Thomas has raised an extremely important question of the moment: Will we accept the breaches of established norms of democracy that the Trump Presidency will entail? If not, as Gale asks in this thread, how can we assert our rejection of that normalization of deviance? What can we do?
I intend to write a series of essays on this subject on my Substack, Together For Good. I'm also organizing lawyers to be ready to defend for free those lower-level civil servants that Trump has said he intends to harass and prosecute with FBI investigations, IRS audits, and criminal prosecutions.
You should learn about the norms we have and why they are important. Then organize locally to speak out against the erosion of norms (for example, by nominating wholly unqualified people to head government agencies). Write letters to the editor of your local newspaper. Organize a discussion group in your church, synagogue, mosque, or service club. Get involved in the Democratic Party to help stiffen the spines of potential appeasers. Don't concede. Keep Hope Alive!
Not by coincidence, I'm reading "Unheard Witness" by Ernst Hanfstaengl, associate of Hitler from 1920-1936. Every few pages I find myself stopping and rereading a paragraph in astonishment. America is not 1920-1945 Germany, and Trump is not Hitler (Hitler was much smarter, for one, and not in cognitive decline). Rhymes, not duplicates. But the similarities in the Nazi path, the interplay of personalities, power and social trends with what we are at the start of are notable.
Thanks for bringing this book to our attention, Greg. The parallels to the early years of the Nazi regime are striking. The original is out of print (and expensive). There is a newer version for less money with the title, The Unknown Hitler : Notes from the Young Nazi Party.
A thing that scares me (although I live in Europe and am less directly impacted) is that this is the first article I've read since the election that correctly identifies Mr Trump as the President-ELECT rather than prematurely referring to him as simply "the President" as if he were currently in office.
We have a strange custom here of using some titles both when they are in or have previously held that office. So he can still be referred to as President Trump in many cases, but also President-Elect.
It's like they CAN'T wait, I'm so disgusted with basically everyone in politics or politics adjacent "edutainment".