I got into a discussion with an old friend the other day about one of philosophy's most nagging questions: do we have free will? Are our thoughts and behaviors determined by forces external to ourselves - our upbringing, the values of our tribe, something the postmodernists speak of when they talk about "narrative"? Or are we free to choose those values, attitudes and beliefs we want to live by and is there such a thing as objective truth to guide us in making those choices?
My view is that while objective truth is often elusive, we are better off assuming such a thing does exist and acting accordingly. "Enlightenment values" - values based on the conviction that all human beings are born with equal rights, that man-made categories such as race and ethnicity and the hierarchies we build around them should not be what determines the rules of society we live by.
The post-modernist take on things - that we don't live by truth but by the stories we tell ourselves - has taken hold so thoroughly and so powerfully that our national debate in America is now determined by it. The Republican Party has been captured by a self-serving narcissist who has brought the country to the point where it is entirely possible it may surrender its 250-year pursuit of democracy, an ideal form of government sought after and never quite reached, because a critical mass of Americans have determined that the power of the presidency should be in the hands of a strong authoritarian leader, and that it doesn't matter whether that leader speaks objective truth, since objective truth, according to post-modernists doesn't exist anyway. What matters is law and order, control, enforcement of authority.
I have a hard time listening to well-intentioned people bewail the polarization of the American electorate. What we need, they say, is an ability to compromise, a move to common ground, an acceptance of other people's ways of doing things. For me, it's not polarization that is the trouble, it's the willingness to grant authority to a strongman rather than pursue the hard work of living with our differences.
Democrats are beginning, at long last, to recognize that in a battle between principled and unprincipled folk, the bad guys have the advantage. If you don't have to tell the truth, you can persuade others to believe in conspiracies and expect to get away with it. Comedians - the people most of us get our news from these days - have had a field day satirizing Trump's penchant for making things up. But lost in the laughter is the fact that the polls show him neck-in-neck with Biden in the 2024 presidential race.
The response to this challenge, it seems to me, is for Democrats to fight fire with fire. I don't mean to play dirty, to lay out a parallel false narrative, but to give up on the idea of "reaching across the aisle." Ever since Newt Gingrich put in place the value of winning at all costs and making fools of naive legislators across the aisle from him, Democrats have allowed the Republicans to ride roughshod over them. I am delighted to see Biden begin to call out the dishonesty he is up against. Others in the Democratic Party should follow suit.
Another way of fighting back against deception of Trumpist magnitude is to take a cue from the Buddhist practice of regarding bad news and the dark side of life not as reality but as products of the mind, artificially constructed out of theoretical material. Rather than agonize over a world gone sour through human malfeasance, imagine ideas as if they were in a bubble floating before your eyes. "Oh, look," you say to yourself when somebody drives anger or deception in your direction, "there's a bubble of anger floating up there in the air. I've got some choices. I can take it in and let it wreak havoc with my state of mind. Or I can pop it. Or just let it float around there in the air until it burns itself out and no longer feels relevant." Nothing is certain, say the Buddhists, except change. All things do pass in time.
I've had some success with this strategy of handling danger and bad news. I've been able to avoid pushing the panic button, take deep breaths, and repeat one of my father's favorite biblical verses: "Sufficient to the day is the evil thereof."
Until this week, I was doing pretty well in following that coping strategy. But then I became aware that the Supreme Court was choosing not to deal with the question of a president's immunity from prosecution in favor of speculating over the danger that a president might not want to leave office for fear of such prosecution. So much for my resolve not to get upset over the American political scene. I'm taking seriously the claim that the Biden-Trump race is neck-and-neck and the only thing that would be likely to sway voters on the fence would be for them to see him actually convicted for one or more of his crimes. Or, at least, to hear the kind of information that would come out in a trial. Unfortunately, the majority of the members of the Supreme Court seem hell-bent on delaying any such trials, exposing their hand as political appointees to the court with a political debt to pay, rather than men (those furthering delay are all men) of integrity committed not to a boss-man but to the rule of law.
The Republican Party has noble origins. It was formed as a party of resistance to the spread of slavery. Today it has become a party of deceit and hypocrisy. It purports to be in favor of small government, but at the same time insists on controlling the reproductive lives of American women. It comes down on the side of gerrymandering and convincing black voters to stay home on election day. And it now even rivals Fox News, the propaganda wing of the party, in its politicization of the Supreme Court.
What - I repeat the question - are the democrats to do to counter this force for deception and opposition to democratic ideals?
The bare minimum, I think, is to keep up the democratic narrative, to use the postmodernist term. Tell the "story" from the democratic perspective at every opportunity.
To give you an example - one of the best I can think of - we can haul out the likes of Jeff Daniels. Remember him in that wonderful scene from "The Newsroom" where he shuts down the question, "Why is America the greatest country in the world?" with the answer that it is not the greatest country in the world, and ticks off the many ways in which it falls behind? It is, ironically, the democratic analogue to what Trump appeals to in his "Make America Great Again" campaign - except that his approach is based on actual ways to bring back American greatness, not to bring back white supremacy, the goal the MAGA folk are after.
Daniels does it again, this time in a two-part (four-hour) series available on Netflix, which was filmed in 2019 and came out in 2020. He plays former FBI director James Comey, who took the heat for Hillary Clinton's loss to Trump in 2016. Actually, there is an even more powerful impact in the series than Daniels'. It comes from Brendan Gleeson's brilliant portrayal of the Donald. I challenge anyone to watch this couple go up against each other without taking sides. Comey has been accused of being "too righteous," but the script should put that inaccurate charge to rest. A telling scene is the one where Trump invites Comey to dinner - just the two of them. Comey tries to get out of it by insisting the head of the FBI and the Chief Executive need to scrupulously avoid an appearance of a collusion between the executive and the judicial branches of government. Trump has no use for such rules and tells Comey he's expecting "loyalty."
All through the series one member of the judiciary after another voices their concern that Trump will ride roughshod over Comey's principles. Which he does, of course, and in the most dramatic fashion.
I can't improve on James Poniewozik's excellent review in The New York Times of The Comey Rule in September 2020. If you want to dig into the story, I recommend that you start there. I am departing from my once firmly-held conviction that the art of the film should not be politicized. The stakes are too high.
And à propos post-modernism, and to counter my friend's argument that we are all simply telling our own narratives - with the implication that there is no single objective truth to be had - let me observe that when Trump first took office and kept Comey on, he praised him for his work in exposing Hillary as "crooked." But when it came time for Comey to "show his loyalty," and Comey preferred to tell the truth about what was going on, Trump turned on him and declared he was no damned good from the start. That story lines up with what is actually the case. It's not two stories different according to perspective; one is true, the other isn't.
Take the time. Get a Netflix subscription if you don't already have one.
The Comey Rule is one of the ways Americans have of fighting back against the Trumpist tyranny. It is a must-see.
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