A few thoughts:
First, I had some good - even deep - relationships with a few semi-prominent conservatives before Donald Trump appeared on the scene. Those relationships have been wrecked, for the most part. And guess what? As much as I despair for what is happening in this country, for what he has done to it and how he has been enabled by those former friends, I also deeply grieve the loss of those friendships. I'm not certain if they can be put back together, or if they should, but I have lost something.
Dougherty's phrase "stock villainy" keeps coming back to me. The phrase implies seeing people in one dimension instead of the three. Few people are only good or only bad, and seeing them that way reduces them, dishonestly. And yet: Donald Trump is the closest thing to a stock villain I have encountered in public life. I cannot discern a redeeming quality in the man. I despised George W. Bush -- but hey, at least he gave the world PEPFAR, and he struck me as somebody who might've been a decent person had he not been given the power of the presidency. I can't even give that much credit to Trump. I can only see one dimension in him. I can see only bad. Sometimes I think that's a failing on my part. I'm certain that it is a failure on his.
So what does Trump's stock villainy say about the people who put him in power?
As Dougherty suggested, there's a strong impulse on the left to just lump them all in together as undifferentiated bad, to write them all off. I get that. But I don't think it's true.
Humans are flawed. Humans are selfish. Humans make mistakes. Humans are dumb! Humans often see the razzle dazzle and miss the conman stealing their wallets. And humans sometimes have bad priorities alongside their good priorities. Only occasionally are humans outright evil. Even more rarely, I think, are humans outright good.
We see Republicans through the lens of Trump, and thus impute his stock villainy to them. They should see what we see and act accordingly, right? But many of his supporters are more complicated than that. It doesn't mean they're right to support him. It doesn't mean we shouldn't upbraid them for their support of the man. But it does mean maybe we should approach the enterprise with just a touch more humility than we usually bring to our politics.
Dougherty's phrase "stock villainy" keeps coming back to me. The phrase implies seeing people in one dimension instead of the three. Few people are only good or only bad, and seeing them that way reduces them, dishonestly. And yet: Donald Trump is the closest thing to a stock villain I have encountered in public life. I cannot discern a redeeming quality in the man. I despised George W. Bush -- but hey, at least he gave the world PEPFAR, and he struck me as somebody who might've been a decent person had he not been given the power of the presidency. I can't even give that much credit to Trump. I can only see one dimension in him. I can see only bad. Sometimes I think that's a failing on my part. I'm certain that it is a failure on his.
So what does Trump's stock villainy say about the people who put him in power?
As Dougherty suggested, there's a strong impulse on the left to just lump them all in together as undifferentiated bad, to write them all off. I get that. But I don't think it's true.
Humans are flawed. Humans are selfish. Humans make mistakes. Humans are dumb! Humans often see the razzle dazzle and miss the conman stealing their wallets. And humans sometimes have bad priorities alongside their good priorities. Only occasionally are humans outright evil. Even more rarely, I think, are humans outright good.
We see Republicans through the lens of Trump, and thus impute his stock villainy to them. They should see what we see and act accordingly, right? But many of his supporters are more complicated than that. It doesn't mean they're right to support him. It doesn't mean we shouldn't upbraid them for their support of the man. But it does mean maybe we should approach the enterprise with just a touch more humility than we usually bring to our politics.
We who aren't Trump supporters are more complicated than that, after all. I've said this repeatedly over the years: We are tremendous at spotting the speck in our brother's eye while ignoring the log in our own.
Where am I going with this? I don't know. If you've bailed out, I understand. I think Trump is a stock villain. I don't think his supporters are, or at least not many of them. We've decided that we can no longer try to tell the difference, or live with the differences. That, too, is profoundly human. But we're going to be stuck in this awful spiral of recrimination if we can't step back, just a little bit. I can defend my values and acknowledge the humanity of Trump voters. Indeed, my values demand that I do so.
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