Resilience and Solidarity in The Era of Trump Editor’s Blog – Talking Points Memo / by Josh Marshall

Resilience and Solidarity in The Era of Trump

Editor’s Blog – Talking Points Memo / by Josh Marshall / 28min

Democrats are being squeezed in a vise of expectations about how to confront, mitigate or if at all possible end the reign (I use the word intentionally) of Donald Trump. I’ve noticed a pattern accelerating in recent days by which the latest outrage from the President – whether it’s a new bad act, suspicious DOJ decision, rape accusation or racist outburst – leads Democrats not to vituperation against the President but a new round of increasingly febrile agitation and attacks against the congressional leaders of their own party.

We’ve all been over the arguments about impeachment versus on-going investigations. We’ve been through the minutiae of on-going subpoena litigation. Is it going fast enough? Is this just the inevitable slowness of the courts? Should Democratic leaders be more outspoken and direct?

Rather than re-litigate these questions it’s more helpful to observe the dynamic from some distance. I continue to believe that impeaching the President now or soon is less effective than aggressive investigation. But it’s hard to look at the progress of the last few months and call it aggressive. Whether, if I understood all the legal particulars and negotiating realities I’d see it differently, I’m not sure. But that is partly beside the point. At least among energized and politically focused Democrats the depth of anger and outrage at the President’s mix of misrule and criminality and racist incitement is simply at an order of magnitude difference from what appears to be the response. What we are seeing now is the opposition to the President, the desire to exact a cost for his offenses doubling back onto the leaders of the opposition itself. Let’s leave aside for a moment whether the expectations are too high or the response is too weak. Clearly they are entirely out of sync with each other and the mismatch is starting to upend the opposition more than its purported target.

Which brings me to these rancid racist tweets from the President over the weekend. We’re way past dog whistles. This is that paunchy loudmouth ranting at some black family at the local diner to “go back to Africa.” Only it’s not some stress case racist. It’s the President of the United States. Or rather the President of the United States is a stress case racist. And for an entire political party and a big minority of the country that’s completely okay.

TPM Reader WB responds to our earlier email like this …

In response to reader JB, I don’t think it’s “pearl clutching” to call out a set of obviously racist tweets from the President of the United States. It’s true that Trump and his M.O. present tremendous, unprecedented difficulties for his political opponents. It’s like a game of Whack-A-Mole with a new outrage every minute, but if we’ve reached the point in the game where nobody notices or says anything when the President of the United States says something clearly and obviously racist, then we’ve already lost. I take the point that it might be a good idea for Democrats to call attention to the fact that he is trying to distract attention from from stories that reflect even more poorly on him, but to label calling out racist tweets from the President of the United States “pearl clutching” is just dumb.

Some of what we’re calling or not calling “pearl clutching” here is a matter of semantics. Certainly I don’t think either reader thinks people shouldn’t be angry and upset that a President of the United States would ever talk this way, let alone publicly and repeatedly. There’s a pattern: Outrage. Some still remaining levels of shock. Demands for apologies. Demands for denunciations from Republicans and for Democrats to do something. Each of these steps in the process makes sense and is inevitable and right. But taken together there is a Groundhog Day quality to it. It generates a unique form of literal and moral exhaustion. Haven’t we been through this storyline – the “Mexican” judge, “very fine” nazis? We know this. Right? We know this person. This is no different from a feral animal on its 10th attack.

Demanding denunciations, asking for Republicans officeholders to say it’s wrong, somehow gives them all too much credit. Better to say this is who you support. We knew this was him yesterday just as much as today and whether you express “deep concern” or even a more fulsome criticism hardly matters because you supported him and followed him yesterday and you’ll be doing exactly the same thing tomorrow. And because of that support, to voters, to everyone who isn’t a diehard in Trump’s camp the message should really always be the same: You have one chance to end this in 18 months and you have one chance to send a real message to every elected official who supports it. Everything else is just preening or deflection or playing again a record we’ve heard before.

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