There is loose talk of “treason,” and no one expected more from Jimmy Kimmel: He is a comedian and, as he has demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt, a fool—a reminder that “comedian” and “fool” were at one point near-synonyms in English. But there is no Lear-style wisdom in Kimmel’s dangerous buffoonery, nor in that of Stephen Colbert et al., only the cynical, self-serving histrionics of high-toned bile merchants with time to fill between the Buick commercials.
We might be tempted to expect more of someone working in a purportedly more serious mode, such as Charles Blow of the New York Times, if we had not read much of Charles Blow of the New York Times. Mr. Blow accused Trump of “treasonous” action, as did former CIA director John Brennan. Michael Cohen of the Boston Globe, which still exists, declared: “Trump is a clear and present danger to U.S. national security.”
The election of Donald J. Trump, bon vivant and game-show host, to the presidency of the United States occasioned a great deal of talk about “normalization.” All the best people instructed us that we were not to “normalize” Trump, that we must treat him instead as an illegitimate outlier. One wonders if those people ever have visited the United States of America, where the Trump style and Trump mentality require no “normalization” at all, being as they are (and long have been) the dominant strain of American pop culture. You might as well argue against the “normalization” of Big Macs, Camaros, and the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. Barack Obama spent eight years offering himself as the American super-ego, and Americans responded by electing their id. President Trump is as normal as diabetes.
But we ought to be concerned about the normalization of treason claims.
We have been there before, after all. As in the case of the United States, the law of the Roman republic defined treason in military terms: perduellio consisted of making war on the Roman republic, assisting those making war on the Roman republic, or handing over a Roman citizen to an enemy at war. During the republican period, charges of treason were levied almost exclusively at Romans in military service for actions taken in a military context. (American law distinguishes between treason and espionage.) Ordinarily, Roman citizens were not subject to capital punishment for such crimes as ordinary murder, but crimes against the state could be punished harshly, as was patricide, which was, in the Roman mind, related to treason. Roman citizens convicted of treason could be subjected not only to death but to a dishonorable death, and could be stripped of their citizenship, as well, which was of keen interest to political operators looking to permanently and comprehensively destroy their rivals.
Inevitably, accusations of treason became political weapons during the imperial period, and the definition of treason was, in the time of Tiberius, loosey-goosey. There were practical reasons for this: Those accused of treason were denied certain legal and procedural protections enjoyed by Romans accused of lesser crimes, and the charge of treason could be brought by any citizen. A treason charge left the accused (and some members of his household) open to torture, a measure to which a Roman citizen would be ordinarily immune. Those convicted were subject to death, exile, civic disability, and expropriation, the lattermost being of keen interest to cash-strapped emperors.
The intent to commit treason was, under imperial practice, legally equivalent to carrying out an actual treasonable act. And eventually more and more things became treasonable: Criticizing certain imperial decrees became treason; if the emperor’s political rivals gathered in a public place, that was treason, too. Once the emperors became gods, the possible range of treason grew liberal indeed.
President Trump, who has a little something of the later Roman emperors in him, is not engaged in making war on the United States, though it is galling to defend him from such charges given his own propensity for talking treason lightly.
He is not engaged in treason or anything like treason. He is engaged in hypocrisy and moral illiteracy. He is a frank admirer of caudillos such as Vladimir Putin, because in his mind ruthlessness, grasping, and amorality are associated with effective leadership. Hence the praise for Kim Jong-un.
Trump is a boob of a familiar sort: The guy sitting on the barstool (though Trump does not drink) saying, “I’m not saying I approve of Hitler, but he got things done.” The president finds much to admire in autocracies and police states, and in foreign affairs he makes that plain enough. The insistence that Putin must have kompromat or financial leverage over Trump is, in the absence of evidence, only a conspiracy theory, and no responsible person in public life should be trafficking in those—not even late-night comedians. Civilization went awry when we stopped socially classifying actors and related entertainers with prostitutes and tinkers, but even Stephen Colbert owes some public duty.
Donald Trump admires Vladimir Putin. There’s plenty to criticize in that without making up ridiculous claims about treason. Trump, and many of his Republican enablers, are irresponsible. Unhappily, they are not uniquely irresponsible. Whatever depths they sink to, the Left is ready to meet them there with a steam shovel.
