STAND BY – The War Between Trump’s Enablers and Moral Rebels

There’s an interesting and timely article in the current Amherst College alumni magazine. Psychology professor Catherine Sanderson explains the science of bystander inaction—why otherwise nice people fail to act when they witness something that, in other, clearer-headed circumstances, they might not allow.

Of course, the author cites last May’s police killing of George Floyd as an example. But it strikes me how this bystander-inaction science might also apply on a broader, societal level, accounting for the political debacle that's played out over the past four years.

Specifically, how millions of Americans have stood by and not lifted a finger as the leader they chose, and who represents them, allows thousands and thousands of their countrymen to die of COVID-19 while he's Twitter-twiddled his little thumbs. Not to mention as he's systematically trashed our democratic institutions and norms of civility.

 

 

The hands are those of a great nation, drowning while Trumpublicans turn away.

             Are there enough of them to
             bring down the massive, gaudy
             dam that’s been holding back
             America’s incredible potential
             for the past four years?

MORAL REBELS
Sanderson calls those who do step forward and act to thwart cruelty “moral rebels.” These, her study suggests, tend to be people with a more accurate sense of what others around them are thinking. And who, in many cases, grew up free of heavy-handed, authoritarian parental control.

So, who have the moral rebels been who've broken from the lock-step Trumpublican ranks to act with integrity and courage? Certainly not the likes of the McConnells, the Grahams, the Barrs, who are ultimately going down with the ship. And not those who've scrambled like rats to abandon ship at the last minute.

Nor those, like John Bolton or Michael Cohen, who've only shown up when they no longer had anything to lose.

No, the moral rebels were those folks, like Mitt Romney, John McCain or Christine Whitman, who did have something to lose and acted with decency anyway. We’ve witnessed, over the past year or so, more and more of these genuine American heroes, standing up to defend our time-honored values against an angry, vengeful bully.

There are many other pre-Trump Republicans who have consistently spoken out: Colin Powell, John Kasich, hundreds of former Justice Department officials, the former Republican strategists behind the Lincoln Project and many more.

We’ve witnessed more and more of these genuine American heroes, standing up to defend our time-honored values against a tyrant. An angry, vengeful bully who, literally since birth, has had nothing on his feeble little mind but feeding his insatiable ego.

LEAKS IN THE DAMN DAM
I wonder, on this, Election Day 2020: Have there been, among political leaders and the ranks of erstwhile Trump supporters, enough moral rebels who, like pinprick leaks in the massive, gaudy dam that’s been holding back America’s incredible potential for the past four years, have grown and joined and brought that dam down? We shall see…

 

A SNOWFLAKE’S CHANCE IN HELL – Fear and Loathing In the Trump Era

Listen to this deluge of campaign ads! Notice how much of the republicans’ message is about fear? A couple of spots running here in MN epitomize it: “I would never vote for so-and-so; he won’t protect us;” and “So-and-so will make Minnesota a sanctuary state for criminals.”

Fear is much easier to incite than any positive passion like hope, excitement or love. With fear, all you have to do is dangle it out there and people—mostly folks who are, I suspect, already deeply insecure—will bite.

It reminds me of Stephen King’s approach to engendering fear. He realized he can stir more fear by merely suggesting the presence of some horror than by actually showing it. That’s because we human beings are so good at filling in the gory details in our imaginations.

Of course, it helps to objectify and demonize the thing you want folks to be afraid of: Cujo, Christine, the Mist…immigrants, the media, smart people…

       It’s easier to be against something that someone
       else’s vision and hard work have created than it is
       to do the work of creating something better yourself.

A CONSTRUCTIVE VISION
There’s another spineless premise at work in the republicans’ message. Attacking someone else—someone you portray as The Enemy—requires none of the clarity and courage it takes to say what it is you stand for. Easier, it seems, to be against something that someone else’s vision and hard work have created than it is to do the work of creating something better yourself.

Both these intertwined, negative attitudes—fear and negativism—are not only gutless, they’re lazy and undisciplined. They require no constructive imagination, no work whatsoever. And, worse than the ignorance inherent in them is the fact that the beliefs they rest on involve not defensible truths, but—to use their proponents’ own term—“alternative” facts.

ILLUSTRATION: iStock/dane_mark

The problem we progressives face in coming elections is that we’ve found no one—yet—on the national level to lay out a vision of the kind of peaceful, prosperous future intelligence, creativity, joy and hope can inspire. Unlike fear, positive concepts like this have to be articulated. And they have to convince conservatives that being constructive just might address their complaints as well, or better than, being destructive.

Perhaps the most difficult nut to swallow, for both sides of the divide, is that the new, positive approach must embody a measure of reconciliation.

        Not a person famous for nothing but fame
        itself, but one with deep insight, an expansive
        outlook and real integrity.

WHO WILL TURN THE TIDE?
During the disastrous second term of George W. Bush, the only solution I could imagine was for a charismatic leader to emerge who might articulate hope for a nation still on wobbly knees from 9/11. My prayers were answered.

Sadly, though President Obama embodied nearly everything we needed as a leader, he failed to use his eloquence to full advantage. And, for reasons I’m convinced the neo-cons are too smart to ever say out loud—though Trump is all but doing so for them—he was met with a degree of political rancor and obstruction one would have thought reserved for a true tyrant.

Once again I’m praying for a charismatic leader, one who can make the distinction between beliefs and facts, articulate a view of the future that doesn’t require Americans to talk circles around the values we know undergird this great country. Not a person famous for nothing but fame itself, but one with deep insight, an expansive outlook and real integrity. One with a deep, selfless love for both country and planet.

Tall order, right? I figure it won’t be the first time the loving power I call God has called on us to be his instruments in delivering a miracle. So please, please, even if you feel insignificant, even you’re deeply disillusioned with our political system, don’t give up. Come Tuesday, November 6, get out and VOTE! And while you’re at it, see if you can help a couple of other people who might otherwise not be voting to do so too.

We can do this…we must do this!