The Consequences of Degrading Discourse
Why we must push back against the climate of violence with kindness and decency and expect a justice system that finally holds a criminal ex-president accountable
There was one Thanksgiving Day message that got most of the attention during America’s top secular holiday several days ago—and for good reason. I’ll get to that in a moment. But consider first what President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden had to say, proffering the kind of message that we should expect from our nation’s leaders, words that at another time could seem almost banal.
This holiday, President Biden told Al Roker during the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, “is about coming together, giving thanks to this country we call home.” And, “We should focus on dealing with our problems and being together…and stop the rancor….We have to treat each other with a little bit of decency.”
“I think it’s important that we all commit to an act of kindness today,” the First Lady chimed in during their call from Nantucket, Massachusetts. “So, call someone and wish them a happy Thanksgiving or do something kind."
Meanwhile, in the alternate world of American carnage, where no moment for tender reflection goes unpunished and anger and cruelty are always on the menu, the malignant one who is the GOP’s leading nominee for president offered this to the American people.
“Happy Thanksgiving to ALL,” Donald Trump wrote, including the “racist” Attorney General Letitia James, the “psycho” Judge Arthur Engoron and his “corrupt” chief law clerk, all of whom along with “crooked” Joe Biden and “all the other Radical Left Lunatics, Communists, Fascists, Marxists Democrats, & RINOS” who are “seriously looking to DESTROY OUR COUNTRY.”
Happy Thanksgiving, indeed. Of course, there were more vile threats and attacks embedded in his hostile online rant. But you get the point: The goal is not just to attack opponents and feed his sadism, but to degrade our feelings and deaden the compassion that a day of thanks inspires.
None of this is a surprise, sadly, after seven years and counting of this consistent outpouring of venom. But it should serve once again as a warning and reminder of our collective responsibility to push back against his further degrading of public discourse and normalization of violence and hate—twin dangers to a democratic society.
If only the issue involved increasing decorum and highlighting examples of kindness and decency. But just several days before the latest vile rhetoric, New York court officials sought to reimpose the gag order against defendant Trump following the “deluge” of threats against Judge Engoron’s law clerk as a result of his attacks against her. That flood, according to Charles Hollon from the Judicial Threats Assessment Unit of the New York Department of Public Safety, included “hundreds of threatening and harassing voicemail messages that have been transcribed into over 275 single spaced pages."
Yes, the longer it takes the courts to hold Trump accountable for inciting violence and to successfully impose a gag order, the more damage it does to the justice system and undermines the public’s belief in the rule of law. But more, this coarsening not only can lead directly to deadly violence, but also further expand the violent environment that convinces other elected officials and their adherents that this is the path to power.
It’s why we need the courts to act with vigor, clarity and confidence, rather than give the appearance they have been intimidated by the mob-style ex-president and now fear triggering the potential powder keg of his cult.
I looked back two years ago to a Thanksgiving time post entitled “The Necessary Battle for Human Decency”—when this community was much smaller—to remind myself how and to what extent this problem has been growing. As I put it then, “The rise in violence and GOP extremist hostility and indifference to human life cannot stand as America's future.” That is still true, in fact even more so.
What follows are portions of that piece to offer some context to our current condition. I hope they serve as a useful reflection on the nature of our challenge. You’ll note this includes a discussion of Kyle Rittenhouse, the teenager who killed two men with an AR-15-style assault rifle in 2020 and was subsequently acquitted of murder. He’s now back in the news after his lawyer said his client is broke and Rittenhouse announced he’s releasing a book to tell his “story of survival, resilience, and justice.” Justice, that is, rather than more accurately vigilante justice.
A teenage boy kills two human beings with an AR-15 assault rifle, and the right-wing and elected GOP extremists celebrate him. A congressman posts an anime video depicting himself assassinating a congresswoman, and nearly every GOP House member chooses to look the other way. Five humans died and some 140 other humans in uniforms were assaulted and injured—including concussions, lacerations, burns, rib fractures and more—and Republicans have minimized or even denied the deadly, violent reality of this January 6 Capitol attack.
The pattern is obvious. Amid a rise in violence—and of menace and intimidation—we are witnessing so-called leaders celebrating, looking the other way and even openly denying what has been recorded and visible for anyone with eyes, ears and an interest in the truth.
This coarsening of the public square, this indifference to human life, is not by coincidence. It’s part of the shameless, sociopathic enterprise of the Republican party that’s focused on feeding the worst impulses of their extremist base. It follows four years of a White House occupant methodically and repetitively degrading and denying the essential humanity of refugees and other vulnerable populations. It comes in the wake of over 770,000 deaths from COVID-19, and a homicidal indifference—if not consciously criminal effort—to stand by and lie while Americans died.
As we reflect on Thanksgiving, a day when Americans break bread and celebrate the beginnings of European settlers in this new land, the history of America can be seen as a history of genocide and violence. Historians have estimated over 10 million Native Americans populated the Americas when colonists arrived. By 1900, the population was less than 300,000.
This and the history of slavery underscores the willingness of Americans to employ violence to expand their dominion and forge a future that too often extracts the ultimate price on those lacking the power to overcome them. A story of violence is surely nothing new for America’s Indigenous peoples or the millions of Africans taken from their native lands.
But at a time when the Republicans have shown their readiness to put an end to the American democratic experiment if they can take and keep power, President Joe Biden and the Democrats are facing the complicated, multi-pronged necessity to be both tougher than their hostile opponents and advocate for humanity. (The passage of Biden’s Build Back Better social and climate bill will provide one example of the ability to accomplish this tricky balancing act.)
“For what shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world but lose his soul?” The Republicans have made clear that they have no reluctance to sacrifice said soul if they can hold power. That increases the need to speak out every day about the degradation of the human spirit and the hostility toward fellow human beings.
Which brings me back to the response to Kyle Rittenhouse. It is dispiriting to witness how many people are fine with the killing of two humans—perhaps because of their love for guns and savoring of vigilante justice, their hostility toward Black Lives Matter, their sad excuse that these dead men had committed previous crimes. In this view, in the name of politics and power or, worse, the gratuitous pleasure of a death cult, humanity can be sacrificed. This cannot stand.
Too many have come to say that the examples of death and destruction, the savoring of violence and lust for power, disproves the notion that “we are better than this.” That view strikes me as an easy out (and it avoids the hard work ahead to change gun laws and intensify the fight for justice and voting rights).
As dark as some days reveal themselves to be, as many reasons as their are to fear the future, let’s not lose faith that we can still prove our capacity to make a better country, show respect for the full diversity of our people, bend the arc toward justice, and demonstrate that decency and true civilization can win out over ruthlessness, nihilism and hate.
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I wish those who are blinded by propaganda had access to your writing. Maybe they would begin to question Fox, NewsMax and Breitbart and walk into decency.
So many yearn for the decency you speak of that has been if not lost subdued like a hostage to power.