Some hoped it would be a clash of the titans. Had National Review’s Jonah Goldberg not showed restraint, his little dustup with former White House counter-terrorism adviser Sebastian Gorka could have better been characterized as child abuse.
Goldberg argued that no, the fact that President Bill Clinton chased intern skirts while president of the U.S. in no way mitigates President Trump’s alleged dalliances with a porn star. Both actions should be condemned because both are immoral. Plain and simple. Any argument otherwise, Goldberg concluded, amounts to partisan hypocrisy.
But like an indignant child, Gorka repeatedly responded that Trump won the election.
It was a classic appeal to authority, a favorite fallacy of White House allies who rely on might when they find themselves backed into a corner without the right arguments. But that bumper sticker sophistry doesn’t peel off so easily. One of these election days, Gorka and company will discover that they’ve silenced themselves by appealing to election results to win likes and retweets and cable news fights.
But how will Trump govern if Democrats take back the House? Will a midterm mandate trump a presidential mandate? Should a majoritarian mob decide disagreements after a single election?
Pushed on Trump’s infidelity, Gorka said “November 2016 happened.”
Confronted with the basic laws of supply and demand, White House trade adviser Peter Navarro defended tariffs by reminding CNN’s Jake Tapper that Trump “ran against 16 Republicans” with different views on trade and “beat every one of them.”
Asked about allegations of sexual harassment, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders responded that “the American people knew this and voted for the president.”
None of those were moral, economic, or political arguments. All are appeals to authority tied to a single isolated event that occurred at a specific moment in time. It’s almost like this administration thinks that anyone challenging their decision-making must have forgotten election night, maybe like a reader forgets the name of a book and needs to be reminded of the title at the top of every single page. (Such a stupid waste of ink. Why do they do that, anyway?).
The basic argument is absent any principle, which makes me suspect it comes from the president himself. And that’s a problem. While Gorka enjoys thousands of retweets and likes from the Trump faithful now, appeals to 2016 won’t have any staying power come 2018, or perhaps 2020, if this administration takes a loss.
Should that happen, these populists will be overlooked like so many lost children. Someone else will be in charge and it won’t matter that November 2016 happened. A new authority will set the agenda, shoving that bumper sticker sophistry down their throats to silence their objections.
