Remember Your Training

Things to remember about how Trump “governs” and how we react to it.

We’re just two weeks since the election and it feels very much like we’ve been Delorean’ed back to 2016. I, having utterly refused to entertain the idea that Donald Trump would win again, find myself in a deeply unpleasant state of negative, cursed nostalgia, if that’s a thing. I had forgotten the chaos, the deluge, and frankly the comedy (sorry) of putting a megalomaniacal, spray-tanned, reality television star in charge of the levers of power. It’s terrifying. It’s also extremely stupid. 

In just the last week, Trump has nominated an accused sex trafficker to run the Department of Justice as Attorney General of the United States; a Fox News host with very few of those very big army medals all the generals seem to have to run the Department of Defense; an oil and gas baron/climate denier to run the Department of Energy; and an anti-vaxxer, covid denier, and bear-corpse-mutilator to run the Department of Health and Human Services. Genuinely kind of funny if we weren’t all completely fucked. 

I know there are some hopeful rumblings that his most stomach-churning choices -- Matt Gaetz in particular -- won’t make it through the confirmation process in the Senate, where Republicans will enjoy a 53-47 majority next year. There are media reports and assurances from pundits that Senate Republicans are privately disgusted by the choice, even! While it is true that Matt Gaetz is uniquely loathsome, both within and without his party, this whole “privately concerned” trope brought back a lot of bad memories from Trump 1.0 and I thought it might be worthwhile to revisit what we learned between 2016-2020 so we don’t keep stepping on the same goddamn rake over and over again for the next four years.

Private hand-wringing don’t mean shit

At some point over the next four years, possibly as soon as January 20, 2025, Donald Trump is going to walk up to a microphone and say the most insane thing ever uttered not just by a president but by any American who ever lived. If I had to guess it would probably be something like “They’re putting whale sperm in the Cheez-its and I’m deporting all the dogs Nicaragua. Also, I’m letting Putin take Ukraine,” or something. Immediately afterwards, somewhere behind a closed door on Capitol Hill, many GOP hands will commence to wringing. Quiet concerns will be shared anonymously with the press. Secret shock will spread. And from this we, the American people, are supposed to believe that maybe, secretly, there is a cohort of Republicans who will resist, and who will help us, and who will stand athwart fascism and say “No, I will not let this man send the Pomeranians back to Germany.” 

Don’t believe it. Remember your training. There was a whole meme about this, remember?

Private concerns don’t mean fuck-all unless they become public concerns followed by concrete action. It isn’t enough to be anonymously concerned about Matt Gaetz’s nomination to be the Attorney General of the literal United States. It doesn't mean anything to be an unnamed source close to the situation who insists the GOP has “balked” at the choice. Senators need to give a quote to the press with their name attached that says “absolutely not.” 

Will they? Remember your training! There is no such thing as a “normal” Republican of the type that cares more about the stability of our democracy than they do about power. All that’s left is MAGA. Even John Thune, sorry! This current crop of Republicans love the “private concerns” thing because they can play pretend, convey values they don’t actually hold, and then enjoy the credit from the media who breathlessly report that they aren’t as corrupted as we all believed. And then 3 weeks later they all unanimously vote to round up the Dalmatians and ship them out of the country. 

With that said, Matt Gaetz is unique in that he is not only repulsive (this by itself is not fatal for Republican nominees), but that he delights in alienating his would-be allies with his repulsiveness. He is a troll who thrives on being hated. Clearly the GOP would be delighted to reject him not so much on the merits (although he is in fact deeply unqualified for this job), but as an act of petty revenge. So the real drama for his nomination in particular is whether Senate Republicans have the courage to anger Trump to reject the slimiest fuck any of them have ever met. But nobody gets any points for being annoyed in private!

You do not have to hand it to ‘em

In my inaugural Swamp Person post, I wrote: 

Democrats are obsessed with decorum and norms, and rarely level with people about the stakes. They yearn for bipartisanship, even when their Republican colleagues are giving them atomic wedgies and sticking their heads in the toilet. I’m not sure why they think they need to hand it to ‘em, but they do. They offer respect when absolutely none is deserved. It conveys to the American people that politics is just a game, and that the threats posed by a MAGA-captured party are overblown. It doesn’t help that Democrats bend over backwards to maintain decorum under completely unprecedented circumstances. The reality that Democrats need to understand is that it simply is not effective, either electorally or morally, to walk down to the Senate Floor and solemnly inform the 4 people watching C-Span that you “strongly but respectfully disagree with my good friend from Kentucky” or whatever. Fuck that!! Let ‘em have it!

Look, I love to be right, and nothing feels better than having my opinion validated within 3 business days or less. But not like this! NOT LIKE THIS!!!

OK, hang on, let me back up. Two days after his nomination for Attorney General was announced, Gaetz resigned from Congress. Not so much because of the nomination, but because the House Ethics Committee was gearing up to release a devastating report investigating claims that Gaetz had engaged in a sexual relationship with a minor and maybe engaged in sex trafficking on the side. But the House Ethics committee doesn’t have jurisdiction over ex-Members, so Gaetz resigned before they could release the report. 

It is now unclear if the committee’s report will be released at all. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson certainly doesn't want it to be, which tells me everything I need to know. And Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries…he’s apoplectic right? He’s setting podiums on fire? He’s enraged, he won’t stand for this! Right??? Well, when asked if the report should be released, Jeffries said, “I defer at this moment to whatever course they (Republicans) decide to take. And I hope they take a course that is bipartisan.”

Okay. Well. Keep hoping, babe! Hakeem, can I offer an alternative response here? How about: “Any Republican who stands in the way of the House Ethic Committee report’s release is engaging in a coverup of Matt Gaetz’s conduct, which allegedly includes sex trafficking and a sexual relationship with a minor. The American people deserve to know whether the nominee for Attorney General of the United States is, in fact, guilty of federal crimes. If Republicans insist on blocking this report, they are complicit.”

See? I didn’t even use any swears. You’ll also note I DID NOT HAND IT TO ‘EM. You have got to explain the stakes to people, not appeal to the GOP’s better angels. There are no better angels to appeal to! These people are power-mad creeps who are standing by to allow a sex pest to become THE TOP LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENT IN THE COUNTRY. Hello? Hakeem? Some urgency would be great here!

Meanwhile, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s nomination to head up the Department of Health and Human Services has similarly driven several Democrats mad. Perhaps the brain worms are contagious? 

Here we have Jared Polis, Democratic governor of Colorado, absolutely handing it to ‘em at unprecedented levels:

He’s…excited that an anti-vax, raw milk enthusiast (who holds a range of psychotic and sometimes racist views I don’t have the time or energy to lay out here) is on the verge of being confirmed to manage and control our nation’s health protocols. Because of…vague concerns about pesticides?

He’s not the only one. New Jersey Senator Cory Booker posted a video on Twitter yesterday outlining his concerns about “chemicals flood[ing] our food system.” While Booker didn’t mention RFK, Jr. by name, Booker nevertheless scored a favorable response to his take from both the nominee and from Polis:

If you’re a Democratic Member of Congress, listen to me, you fucking weenies. REMEMBER YOUR TRAINING. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO HAND IT TO THESE PEOPLE! I know pesticides are bad, and I know our system is overrun by special interests, and our institutions are broken, but putting an insane person in charge is not going to fix this. 

Why is everyone going insane right now? Like 20 minutes ago we all agreed that Trump was an existential threat to our democracy, and now we’re seeking bipartisan cooperation with a man who framed a cyclist for a bear’s murder??

I think there are a couple of things happening here. The first was laid out pretty expertly by Chris Hayes: one of Trump’s strengths is, in his own deranged way, acknowledging the distrust between Americans and the broken institutions that are supposed to protect us. Trump isn’t interested in fixing them, of course, but he at least understands that the system is broken and people are mad about it -- an easy way to drive a wedge to score political points, at the very least. But as Hayes puts it, “what Trump does is constantly divide the country along the lines of pro-system and anti-system,” which puts those who want a functioning government in the position of arguing in favor of a fucked-up status quo:

So again, part of this Dem madness, I think, can be attributed to not wanting to signal support for systems that they have tried to reform through other legislative means, but supporting unqualified, anti-science conspiracy theorists is no way to fix what has been broken. It would be more credible for Democrats to say, “I’m not here to defend a broken system, but I am here to defend it from further harm,” but instead they’re signaling that they’re brain-worm-curious. Why?

I think the answer to that is: Donald Trump won the popular vote and Democrats have decided that gives him a mandate to kill us all I guess? They don’t know how to resist under these conditions, and so they aren’t. They simply aren’t resisting, despite the fact that Trump’s “mandate” is pretty tenuous -- he didn’t even win 50% of the popular vote count. Trump may have won but he isn’t popular; it is the Democratic Party’s job for the next two years at least to remind the American people that a better, more stable future is possible. But you can’t do that and hand it to ‘em at the same time.

Activating your training after you’ve remembered it

I think the jury is still out on what Resistance 2.0 will look like. I doubt it will feature massive mobilizations and direct actions like last time, but that doesn’t mean we won’t find ways to stay engaged, and it certainly doesn’t mean that we’re any less horrified by what we’re seeing. 

If you have a Democratic Member of Congress, it seems clear, at least so far, that being in regular touch with them will be critical -- it appears that the lesson they’ve learned from Donald Trump winning the popular vote is that they’re now required to be patsies for his administration. It’s our job to disabuse them of this notion, either through calls, postcards, or emails.

If you have a Republican Member of Congress, I know your expectations are subterranean, but there are some of Trump’s nominees that I think are beatable. Chief among them is Matt Gaetz. Be sure to give them a call and let them know you oppose Gaetz’s nomination and that private concerns aren’t enough -- you want a public statement on whether or not they plan to confirm a man currently under federal investigation to head up the agency that’s investigating him. 

Consider also sending a letter to the editor when you see the “private handwringing” trope in the media. Who cares what happens privately? Reporters should name names or ignore it. There’s no need for the media to launder the reputations of Republicans who want credit for being concerned privately while doing the evil thing publicly. We simply won’t fall for it anymore.

With all that said, my advice from last week also stands: not all resistance actions need to be directed at Congress. Find ways to stay engaged with your community, your neighbors, your friends. Find volunteer opportunities! Maybe an animal shelter! The dogs could be next you guys!!!