Eric Alterman on Holding Trump Enablers Accountable [View all]

[babylonsister]

https://billmoyers.com/story/hold-all-trump-allies-accountable/


Eric Alterman on Holding Trump Enablers Accountable
BY Eric Alterman | January 8, 2021


I’ve been forced to write about Donald Trump an awful lot during the past five years and the problem I always face when writing in a limited space, like this one, is which of his countless horrific qualities to focus on. The same thing happens when I need to address the consequences of the policies of his administration. There are so many terrible ones, so many victims and so many enablers. I always found myself asking, “Who deserves a thousand words today?”

Not today. I don’t dispute the genuine horror, outrage and sadness genuinely patriotic people feel at seeing the desecration of one of the most potent symbols of American democracy. I share those feelings. But another part of me is glad about it. Finally, Trumpism has clarified itself. It’s not about “economic insecurity.” It’s not about globalization. It’s not about being “forgotten,” “disdained by elites,” or “fear of the future.” It’s just about hatred: hatred of anyone and anything who is not a white, Christian, right-wing, American-born American. Any other attempt to defend or explain Trump’s appeal is a lie and a dangerous one at that because it’s a lie that perpetuates all the other lies that have allowed him and his minions to conduct a rampage against America and all that it stands for; the same rampage that finally found its physical manifestation in the insurrectional riot we saw on Wednesday.

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The obvious question for which there is just as obviously no clear answer yet is, “Are we too far gone to save ourselves?” As posed by the punditocracy, it takes some form of, “How much of the Republican Party will remain in thrall to this guy that we now all suddenly discovered is a dangerous lunatic?” This question is always followed by references to rhetorical flamethrowers, Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley and the total of 179 lawmakers who, even after what they saw on Wednesday, still refused to recognize the rightful president-elect of the United States. (This is coupled with a running count of which rats are jumping from their sinking ship. ) But the Congressional Republican Party is just the head of an extremely pugnacious and poisonous snake. The reptilian structure it grows out of has strangled so many of institutions that make democracy possible and infected so many of the people who shape and influence it, one has a hard time imagining where we will find the resources to nurse the body politic back even to a semblance of good health.

One thing is for certain, however: we have no choice but to try. There is no “moving on” or “looking to the future” without first facing the truth. And that means legally holding responsible everyone who helped to create the criminal syndicate that took over our government and morally, everyone who supported it. They were not just “playing politics,” this time around. They were toying with treason. And that’s just how they need to be treated if we are to restore a semblance of functional democracy to our system and personal honor to our politics.