Friday with Jennifer Rubin

 Reprinted from The Washington Post

February 2, 2024

What caught my eye by Jennifer Rubin

Across time and geography, people respond to totalitarian threats in similar ways. Some people collaborate; others resist. And still others accommodate authoritarians, trying to keep their heads down to avoid an existential choice. As Anne Applebaum eloquently put it in her 2020 essay in the Atlantic on collaborators:

To the American reader, references to Vichy France, East Germany, fascists, and Communists may seem over-the-top, even ludicrous. But dig a little deeper, and the analogy makes sense. The point is not to compare Trump to Hitler or Stalin; the point is to compare the experiences of high-ranking members of the American Republican Party, especially those who work most closely with the White House, to the experiences of Frenchmen in 1940, or of East Germans in 1945, or of Czesław Miłosz in 1947. Given Trump’s assault on democracy, we should identify which Republicans chose which category and what consequences flow from their choices. Collaboration: Local snitches, propagandists and eager Nazi party joiners helped implement oppression in occupied Europe during World War II. Today, collaborators wear red hats, not black-and-red arm bands. They parrot racist slogans, stir xenophobia, attack law enforcement, incite violence, condone their leader’s cruelty, spread conspiracies and conceal Trump’s mental disintegration. They have given up on the United States’ quest to become a more perfect union. Close Trump cronies (e.g., Stephen Miller, Mark Meadows) and the mid-level officials (many of whom joined to gain proximity to power) whose presence shrouded the administration in a thin veil of normality chose collaboration. Cable news apologists (some adjudicated liars), MAGA lawmakers (from Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida to former speaker Kevin McCarthy of California to Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana to Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas) and right-wing radio hosts afraid of losing their audience also went down this path. Governors, such as Texas’s Greg Abbott, who openly defy court rulings and spur voter suppression efforts adopt collaboration — as do state legislators who gleefully gerrymander districts and suppress voting. Let’s not forget supposedly sober-minded Republicans who insisted in 2020 that Trump was the safer choice. Add in MAGA donors, campaign aides, the former officials who refused to testify against Trump and once-respectable think tanks turned into propaganda and policy arms for Trumpism. All the GOP major presidential candidates who left the 2024 race, except former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, became collaborators when they endorsed Trump. Collectively, they not only normalize MAGA extremism but demonize those who resist Trump. Collaborators also include the right-wing partisans on the Supreme Court who strip away civil rights, wreck the regulatory state and erode separation of church and state in service of their MAGA patrons. Resistance: Naturally, Democrats opposed Trump and Trumpism. Republicans did not face imprisonment or death for standing up to Trump. It wasn’t that hard to put up a fight. And yet, Republican resisters remained pathetically scarce. The few holdouts certainly stand out: Never Trump Republicans (and their media outlets), Sen. Mitt Romney (Utah) and former Republican members of Congress Liz Cheney (Wyo.) and Adam Kinzinger (Ill.). They broke from their “tribe,” suffered ostracism and, in some cases, lost their jobs because they persistently denounced MAGA’s attacks on democracy and truth. Some former Trump aides (e.g., Cassidy Hutchinson), former state representatives (e.g., Arizona’s Russell “Rusty” Bowers) and lawyers from “team normal” (who willingly told their story to the House select committee investigating Jan. 6, 2021) all resisted. Individual motives might have varied. But a common pattern emerges: Resisters refused to put personal ambition above love of country. They entered politics with a code of conduct grounded in religious belief, patriotism or family heritage. Had they joined Trump, they would not have been able to sleep at night or explain themselves to their children and grandchildren. Accommodation: Dictatorial regimes succeed not just by roping in enthusiastic collaborators. Without the equivocators and the moral relativists who try to stay out of their era’s overriding moral choice, evil regimes would falter. In that regard, many ex-Trump advisers remain mum about his unfitness. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) voted not to impeach for the insurrection (and hence encouraged others not to break ranks), and GOP lawmakers frequently pretend they missed Trump’s latest tweet to avoid criticizing him. “When challenged, they speak up only long enough to make excuses for Trump and engage in moral obfuscation over issues that they must certainly know are not remotely complicated,” the Atlantic’s Tom Nichols wrote. They thereby “create a permission structure for Trump supporters, to model how a reasonable person can dismiss Trump’s astounding disregard for the law and even for basic decency and yet still vote for him and other GOP candidates in the name of some greater good” (e.g., preventing “socialists” from ruining America). The media’s habit of blurring the moral stakes makes accommodation easier. Media outlets that resort to false equivalences and values-neutral horse-race coverage prioritize obfuscation (dubbed “neutrality”) over truth-telling. (The Sunday shows continue booking election deniers, and cable TV hosts hold softball interviews with MAGA politicians.) Meanwhile, pollsters and pundits distract the public with meaningless early polls. (Most shameful, “anti-anti-Trump” conservative figures attack resisters.) When the American Israel Public Affairs Committee backs any official (including election deniers) who follows its lead on Israel and business leaders insist they like Trump’s policies (or make donations to both sides to cover their bets), they make betrayal of democracy acceptable.The most dangerous form of accommodation: No Labels and fringe candidates lure voters from the only candidate who can beat Trump (President Biden) while falsely denying they are spoilers for Trump. Accommodators who think they can avoid history’s harsh judgment might consider how “moderate” White ministers whom the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. condemned in his “Letter From Birmingham Jail” were regarded. History scorns moral cowards for enabling evil. Trump accommodators will fare no better.