Character assassination has long been a spectator sport in Washington, D.C. Indeed, history buffs regale us with sordid tales of libel, slander and assorted other methods of reputational damage — committed by the Founding Fathers, no less!
Even our most revered leaders – Lincoln, FDR, Kennedy, and Reagan – engaged or employed surrogates to torch their political opponents and dissenting members of the fourth estate.
I’m in the habit of reminding audiences of such history whenever I hear a questioner bemoan the vitriol associated with today’s political discourse. “Nothing much new here” is my typical assurance. But I may soon be forced to change my opinion. It is becoming more difficult to make the case for historical equivalence. Three circumstances unique to the Trump era are to blame.
The first concerns Trump’s rhetoric. Our forty-fifth president does not pretend to be a conservative intellectual. He often speaks in simple sentences. Much of what he says is unscripted. He can be vindictive in chastising his opponents – even when wrong on the facts. And apologies for crossing the line are not easily given.
Yet, half of America stands up and applauds every time the president tosses a rhetorical hand grenade at the mainstream media. For these folks, the president’s sometimes over-the-top rhetoric is forgiven because they believe he speaks from the heart; that he has the guts to say what they can only think. It’s a full court, anti-P.C. press – and plenty of flyover deplorables can’t seem to get enough of it.
Second, the coarsening of our society proceeds apace. What constitutes socially acceptable language is constantly defined down. The era of censorship seems so 1960s — and it is. Hollywood has played a leading part here, as has social media. And increasing secularization will assuredly deepen our country’s cultural permissiveness for the foreseeable future.
A third cause of today’s extreme (political) temperature concerns the abrupt exit of President Barack Obama and the equally abrupt arrival of the anti-Obama Trump. Many on the left assumed a Clinton win would continue the Obama era’s leftward lurch. Talk about a dream agenda. Clinton promised a progressive Supreme Court, abortion on demand, open borders, sanctuary cities, transgender bathrooms – even an end to that outdated notion of “American exceptionalism.”
But an extended progressive era came crashing down on Nov. 8. And it was the uncouth, bombastic nationalist who did it. No wonder the rhetoric has been so overboard. Everybody hates the party pooper!
There is an especially grotesque element of contemporary (political) communication that further soils our discourse – the gratuitous use of “Nazi” or “racist” whenever conservatives advocate a position adverse to the progressives’ adopted moral high ground.
Full disclosure here includes a President-elect Trump who took the bait when he compared intelligence leaks regarding a Russian-produced dossier on his private life to Nazi Germany. The reviews were less than positive; throw the flag on the president for that one. But progressives are the overwhelming winners of the Nazi/racist race to the bottom. Google searches of “Nazi” and “racist” and “fill-in-the-blank Republican” will keep one busy for many hours.
And so month two of the Trump era begins with these and similar indictments lodged against the president by America’s leading academics, actors, artists, and pundits. Their nullification campaign continues. The escalating nature of the rhetoric is evident. The media’s shockingly positive response to Trump’s first speech to a joint session of Congress notwithstanding, de-escalation does not appear to be an option. How is a reasonable person to interpret all the daily noise?
The answer is clear – but easier said than done. We consumers of news must become more critical in our daily interpretation of what we see and read.
A few examples from the past few weeks provide helpful context:
— The president insults CNN or one of its reporters. That’s an easy one – an (almost) daily occurrence.
— The president plans to deploy 100,000 National Guard troops in nationwide immigration raids. This storyline is plausible, but better to investigate further. Oops, turns out the AP published a false story on the basis of a draft memo; the news agency subsequently apologized.
— The president removes a bust of Dr. Martin Luther King from the Oval Office on the eve of his Inauguration. This just didn’t sound right from the jump. And it was not true – just a bit of fake news – all the better to fit a racist narrative.
Gen-Xers and millennials are expert at trolling social media outlets. They can figure it out for themselves. For my fellow baby boomers – the bad news is that Walter Cronkite is not coming back. The good news is that most of us can still recognize a stinker when we see one – but we just have to dig a bit deeper.
Have you students of history heard of the 1000 Days War? Well, welcome to the “Four Years War”! And slurs and melodrama have replaced truth as the first casualty.
Gov. Robert Ehrlich is a Washington Examiner columnist, partner at King & Spalding and author of three books, including the recently released Turning Point. He was governor of Maryland from 2003 – 2007.
