What an insane week.
I spent some time on Monday and Tuesday reading old newsletters, with the intention of using this Sunday’s edition to reflect a bit on how the newsletter has changed in the last nine months, and to plot out my plans for the coming year.
That became far less interesting when a mob entered the Capitol building and degraded the symbols of an already disgraced political system. In a year of shocking moments and horrific imagery, the events on Wednesday fit very well.
One takeaway I’ve had from the past year writing to all of you is that it is hard to write about politics. I guess that should have been more obvious, but it wasn’t. For one thing, I’m young and naive; my beliefs are still pretty fluid. For another, I don’t follow current events closely enough to feel adequately informed about what’s going on, or to feel confident enough in my beliefs. Going back over some of my more political pieces from 2020, I felt very much like just another obnoxious voice in the echo chamber.
Here’s an example of this issue from last week. I saw a clip of Dan Crenshaw, the eye-patched Texas congressman, calling on Trump and other Republicans to stop lying to their supporters about a stolen election. It was a pretty responsible message in the wake of what was happening on Capitol Hill. Then I sent it to a friend, who replied with Crenshaw’s campaign video for the Georgia senate run-off, in which he parachutes into Georgia to eliminate Antifa threats like a Navy SEAL. It’s absurd and makes any smart words he said this week ring hollow.
And that’s the problem: It’s hard to keep up with politics. My Crenshaw experience is unavoidable – it’s the essential gotcha! moment of Twitter and why it’s so hard to talk about any of this in the first place. In a world of hypocrites and immoral actors, there are an infinite number of issues, relationships and incentives to track and understand before it feels safe to say anything definitive about the state of affairs. And unfortunately, in the exact moment on Wednesday when everyone was asking themselves what all this meant for the future, Republicans put on an absolute clinic in hypocrisy.
But I think the hypocrisy has to be looked past at some point. Yes, it’s slimy of people like Lindsey Graham, Tom Cotton and even Crenshaw to start distancing themselves from Trump once it’s no longer politically expedient. There is no salvaging their reputations. But I would gladly take that change of heart over the alternative of entrenched beliefs and even more dangerous chaos in Washington. At the very least, when this #stopthesteal charade came to a head, a lot of people who matter backed away. And these are the politicians we’re stuck with for the foreseeable future – I’d much prefer they cravenly support our democracy than keep trying to blow it up. That doesn’t give me confidence in the next decade of American politics, but it does make me think our institutions have a little bit of fight left.
I’ve been saying since last fall that I thought the fears over American democracy were overblown. I was wrong, no buts. If you re-read my election piece, I clearly did not think this would happen. I remember telling one friend on a Zoom call that we weren’t Bolivia, or Peru, where this kind of mayhem occurs more regularly. Well it has now happened here, and there’s not much to say it won’t keep happening. Read about peronismo in Argentina and you’ll get a flavor for how Trump’s cult of personality could influence American politics for the next fifty years. Periodic takeovers of government buildings by maniacs could become normal as we tug-of-war between ideological poles.
Unfortunately, the coming days will be spent finger-pointing and making comparisons between Black Lives Matter, Antifa and whatever these people are calling themselves. I won’t add to that conversation. But what should be a critical wake-up moment for our leaders will just descend into the tired argument of: No, YOU incited political violence first! No, YOU! And like usual, no one will convince anyone of anything.
What is most interesting to me from Wednesday, and the most depressing, are the actions of people once they were inside the Capitol building. Everyone in the media is saying these people were lied to, and that’s exactly how they seemed: brainwashed by lies. Yelling things like “we took the House” and “I don’t trust any of these people,” asking for directions to the bathroom (!) while somewhere else a woman gets shot. Filming constantly, because what’s cooler than taking over the most powerful government in the world with a handful of loyalists and no weaponry? Not to mention minimal opposition from law enforcement.
One of my favorite political commentators, Ezra Klein, who recently left his post at Vox for a weekly column at the NYT, said it very well in his inaugural piece:
“If their actions looked like lunacy to you, imagine it from their perspective… The president of the United States told them the election had been stolen by the Democratic Party, that they were being denied power and representation they had rightfully won… More than a dozen Republican senators, more than 100 Republican House members, and countless conservative media figures had backed Trump’s claims.”
It’s sad. It’s such a disgrace that we’ve gotten to this point, where government isn’t revered but rejected. The German parliament building, the Reichstag, rebuilt after the famous fire in 1933 that helped catalyze the rise of the Nazi party, now includes a glass dome symbolizing the people’s place “above government.” We’re nowhere near postwar Germany, but it feels like we need something like that glass dome. An acknowledgement by everyone in politics that they’ve lost control and need a reset, a way to gain back trust.
I’m left with a question I’ve asked myself more times this past year than in any other: What should I do? I feel guilty for wanting to just shut this all out, but I still don’t see how following along closely does me or the people around me any good. I don’t want to put a knot in my stomach if I don’t have the tools to untie it. Even following along Wednesday just felt pointless, so I stopped. “Angry Mob Breaches Capitol” is pretty much all I needed to see. Every conversation I’ve had since has left me feeling confused and discouraged.
But then how does one engage in our political system? Let’s say that the right thing to do is protest – where should I do that? Is the answer for us all to go to Washington and make it known that Wednesday’s atrocity was un-American? Is the answer to do so in NYC, or to travel to a place in the country that’s sympathetic with those people? Outrage feels useless. I’m a college-educated liberal on the East Coast. Anyone I talk to will be just as outraged as I am. If the mob had gotten what they wanted, and Biden’s victory had been denied, then mass-protest and even violence would be warranted. But what do you do otherwise, when you’ve “won” but feel like somehow you’ve lost?
And then there’s my outlook on all of this. I am a terrible predictor, so just skip this paragraph if you’re sick of my optimism. But, notwithstanding the tone of what I wrote above, I still feel like we’re turning a corner. The shock value of extremism can be useful in both directions, so why couldn’t it be the case that a handful of idiots bring our country back to reality? Maybe our leaders will be less willing to indulge a demagogue in the future after seeing where it can lead.
At any rate, I’m left in a weird place, as I’m sure many of you are. I know you have opinions on this, and I’m curious to hear your thoughts on how best to operate in this environment. Am I way off base?
Some other thoughts I have:
- A piece in the NYT came out on Thursday titled “The Far-Right Told Us What It Had Planned. We Didn’t Listen,” which pretty much summed up my experience of Wednesday’s events. I had no idea the Save America rally was happening, having pretty much tuned out the garbage coming from Trump and his minions since Election Saturday. There are two completely different worlds in this country and it just keeps getting more apparent.
- Empathy is more important than ever. The people who stormed the Capitol building, while deserving arrest and jail time, are not the enemy. When Fauci and Cuomo tell me to wear a face mask, I wear a face mask. When Trump and others tell those Americans the election was stolen, they believe the election was stolen. That doesn’t mean they bear no responsibility – like I said, they should go to jail – but if my heroes had told me to go storm the Capitol, I might have been there.
- I have big hopes for Biden’s inauguration speech, even if the likelihood of it unifying anything in the country is essentially zero. He should reach out to the people from Wednesday explicitly and say “I am your president and care about you.” Republicans should do the right thing and echo his statements. Imagine if Biden invited a Republican to share the podium! Some kind of reconciliation is needed.
Something Light
Can’t end on that note, right?
Yesterday I went to the MoMA for the first time in about a year with a friend I hadn’t seen since summer. It reminded me of a bad habit I have of taking awful pictures in museums, knowing full well they’ll be deleted later on. Who wants to look at poorly lit photos of paintings when you can see something much better online?
Luckily for me, Anne has occasionally been willing to pose with the paintings, which turns a wasted photo into a nice memento.
Below is one such masterpiece: Anne with Obese Mona Lisa.
Enjoy the week and keep your heads up.
– Emmett
What I’m Reading: Only the heavyweights!
Bring the Insurrectionists to Justice – Peggy Noonan, WSJ
“Here’s to you, boys. Did you see the broken glass, the crowd roaming the halls like vandals in late Rome, the staff cowering in locked closets and barricading offices? Look on your mighty works and despair.”
This Is When the Fever Breaks – David Brooks, NYT
“I’m among those who think this is an inflection point, a step back from madness. We’re a divided nation, but we don’t need to be a nation engulfed in lies, lawlessness and demagogic incitement.”
What I’m Listening To:
Tim Ferriss and Dax Shepard – Unlocking Us w/ Brené Brown
This was so awesome. The Avengers of self-improvement. “It’s everything you’d expect from three people who consider curiosity about ourselves and the world and each other a way of life.“