Let's Be Immoderate

In response to anger over his abolitionist advocacy, William Lloyd Garrison, founder of the anti-slavery newspaper, The Liberator, wrote this, in 1831: “I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject, I do not wish to think, or to speak, or write, with moderation. Tell a man whose house is on fire to give a moderate alarm ... but urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present. I will not equivocate ... AND I WILL BE HEARD.”

Everyone, not just columnists, can be heard. By friends, family. By their conscience. If Trump’s and his Congressional conspirators’ recent behavior doesn’t end their political careers, and if you’ve not said something, anything, to anyone, you’re with them.

After Trump made undeniable his intent to subvert America to save himself, no Republican leader has had the guts to place country above power and party. Witnessing his hate for everything that our country stands for and by which it has survived as the world’s most durable democracy, their craven, cowardly silence is an indictment more powerful than any heading Trump’s way.

Fully aware of how his cultists respond to his unsubtle calls for violence, Trump posted a picture of himself wielding a baseball bat next to a picture of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s head. Predictable as lies at his rallies, death threats ensued. On his Truthless Social platform, he ranted like a street-corner doomsayer: "What kind of person can charge another person, in this case a former President of the United States ... and leading candidate (by far!) for the Republican Party nomination, with a Crime, when it is known ... that potential death & destruction in such a false charge could be catastrophic for our Country?" Death and destruction. Subtle. 

“Bragg,” he on-rambled, “ ... is a Soros backed animal who just doesn’t care about right or wrong no matter how many people are hurt [projection much?]... this is Russia and China [whose leaders he later praised as “very smart people”], but worse. Disgraceful! ... He is just carrying out the plans of the radical left lunatics. Our country is being destroyed, as they tell us to be peaceful!” An animal! Backed by a Jew! Radical left! Don’t be peaceful! Grab a bat and follow me. I’ll be right behind you.

There’s been no condemnation from elected Republicans. To the contrary, offering a free pass for all crimes Trump has committed or has yet to, House Republicans floated a law preventing state or local prosecution of any ex-president. Insurrection-lauding Marjorie Taylor Greene led a flagrant flock of fellow felon-fluffers to visit and glorify incarcerated January 6 rioters, calling them “political prisoners.” Later, she demanded defunding “the justice system.” Which, because it’s America, had given them fair trials and found them guilty. 

At last weekend’s Wacko rally, miming allegiance to justice, Trump stood hand-hearted, as a sappy recording blared his voice and those of convicted January Six felons singing our national anthem. While video of their seditious attack on the Capitol played, reverentially, like a hymn.

Trump and MAGA Republicans are all in on insurrection. Without irony and to cheers of his unpatriots, he eructed his usual election lies, poor-me-isms, and a promise that, if elected, “The thugs and criminals who are corrupting our justice system will be defeated, discredited, and totally disgraced.” We can hope.

It’s not those who’d apply the law to Trump who threaten our country; it’s those who wouldn’t. Until Republican leaders renounce him and his poisonous anti-Americanism, voting for any of them is nearly treasonous. So says respected conservative, retired Federal Judge, Michael Luttig: “The Republican Party has made its decision that the war against America’s Democracy and the Rule of Law it instigated on January 6 will go on, prosecuted to its catastrophic end.” 

People like those who attend Trump’s rallies to have their hatreds and grievances validated by a lying sociopath will never forswear him. But for Congresspeople sworn to defend our Constitution, and anyone who believes in America, there’s no longer any excuse to excuse Trump. There never was.

“If they can come for Trump, they can come for you,” say his mouthpieces. But it’s the reverse: if they can come for you for committing crimes, they MUST come for him, too. Conservatism can survive another four years of job and economic growth, protecting public education, rebuilding infrastructure, addressing climate change, protecting voting and civil rights, women’s and LGBT rights; providing for people in need, strengthening NATO, and more. It cannot endure another four years of Trumpism, though, and neither can America. Aiming to destroy the Republic to escape justice, Trump endangers us all. Silence is complicity.

And William Lloyd Garrison was a Republican.

Less Alfred, More William

My next newspaper column:

I’m on record, around my house anyway, saying President Obama should have refused his Nobel Peace Prize. Maybe that confers credibility when I say to those, including South Korean President Moon, suggesting the next one ought to go to Trump, “Not so fast.” 

The question is to what extent Trump had anything positive to do with potential Korean peace, and the answer is, who knows? Was his uninformed bellicosity instrumental? If so, was it deliberate strategy? If the answers to both are yes, then, okay, give him a slice. So far, though, pledges to end the Korean War and denuclearize the peninsula seem to have happened absent the US.  

Which leads me think the two Korean leaders decided to do it on their own; because, based on Trump’s desire to renege on the Iran agreement, TPP, and Paris, they figure they couldn’t trust any accord to which the US was signatory. Is there a Nobel Prize for untrustworthiness? 

Other factors: the literal collapse of NoKo’s nuclear facility; Kim’s secret meeting with Xi; Kim’s existing nukes, about which, after his meeting with Pompeo, there was no mention of removing. That, it seems, is between the two Koreas. Aware Trump’s promises are worth less than a reverse Stormy denial, Kim cleverly asked for assurance we wouldn’t invade. It’s meaningless, but it gives cover for both of them. Moon knows Nobly flattering Trump accrues points for later. For that matter, Binyamin Netanyahu knows deceptions about the Iran agreement will impress Trump and the Foxified. 

But, sure: if sustainable peace and verifiable denuking happens, if Trump avoids harshing the mellow, and if the Swedes want to include him in their prize, they should. (My fantasy: it goes to Kim, Moon, and Pompeo.)  

More praise for Trump: I agree the White House Correspondents’ Dinner should go away. It’s become an embarrassment, especially to the White House press. Their job is not to make nice with any administration, it’s to keep skeptical distance while calling them to account. Given a chance to affirm those truths last week, they blew it. Ironically, at the bizarre, grandiose rally Trump held during the dinner, he passed the three-thousand official untruths mark. 

Yes, Michelle Wolf was crude and nasty, though not compared to Trump’s most rabid – if easily offended – base. (NSFW proof.) But, more than many in her audience whose job it is, she spoke truth to power. She owes Sarah Sanders and Kellyanne Conway apologies? No. They owe us. They accept money to tell lies, about Trump, about the press, furthering Americans’ disregard for truth. Sordid lies from the White House vs. vulgar humor from a comedian: which damages our country more? Yet leadership of the press corps and several of its members condemned the speech. 

Brooking unprecedented attacks on journalists and their profession, nonstop attempts to diminish their indispensable role in the preservation of freedom, an administration lying its way past multiple offences, even threatening blackmail of a US Senator, they hadn’t the courage to stand up. If there’s a problem with mainstream media, it isn’t liberal bias; it’s forgetting what they’re called to do, and by whom. 

Right-wing screamerdom was outraged. Silent over the vulgarities of their president, fresh from eight years of slinging vile insults at the prior one and his family, countenancing misogyny, racism, homo- and xenophobia, torrents of dishonesty and threats, they melted like snowflakes at hearing someone respond in kind. Donald Trump, the very embodiment of the word, called Ms. Wolf “filthy.” From our unfair and unbalanced media such hypocrisy is expected. From those who consider themselves serious reporters, the sort empowered and protected by the Constitution, it’s discouraging.  

So it’s a good time to recall the words of William Lloyd Garrison, journalist, abolitionist, suffragist, written before the Civil War (I do, when people tell me to tone it down): “I do not wish to think, or speak, or write, with moderation… Tell a man whose house is on fire to give a moderate alarm … but urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present… I will not equivocate -- I will not excuse -- I will not retreat a single inch..." 

So, good for Ms. Wolf. Her audience, present and absent, needed calling out for their malfeasance. Sadly, she gave them more credit for understanding their role than they deserved. 

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