Trumpanzees and fellow-travelers

I think that I shall never see
Aught viler than the Trumpanzee.....

There's an ongoing discussion about whether Trump's voters chose him out of "economic insecurity" or out of xenophobia and a desire to preserve the dominance of white Christians over the rest of the population.  It seems obvious that different motives were uppermost in the minds of different individuals; however, it's even more obvious that it ultimately doesn't matter.

The Republican party has consistently campaigned on, and tried to implement, policies such as taking away women's right to abortion, denying gay people the right to marry and laws protecting them from discrimination, and making the US a "Christian nation" in ways that would de facto make non-Christians second-class citizens in our own country.  To all this, Trump in 2016 added a venomous demonization of Hispanics.  It's just not possible for an even slightly informed person to be unaware of these things.  If somebody simply ignores all that and votes Republican based on economic policy or whatever, they still demonstrate that they are OK with those other policies -- that they're willing to sacrifice the freedom and rights of gay people, atheists, Hispanics, and others as acceptable collateral damage.

We do not owe such people respect, the benefit of the doubt, or an atom of "civility".  We have no obligation to remain passive or genteel in the face of a political movement which is viciously attacking us, as the conservative movement is.  There are good reasons why this conflict is called the culture war, not the culture debate.  As Malcolm X said, "I'm not going to turn the other cheek when some cracker is busting me in the jaw."  There is no moral equivalence between the persecutors and the persecuted.

The only thing to do with such people is to defeat them -- at elections, and by blunting and blocking the destructive policies of this regime by protest, resistance at the state level, or whatever other legal tactics are likely to be effective.  If some less-committed Republicans can be won over to our side, so much the better -- but we have to recognize that with most of them it will be impossible.  People who can defend the border family separation policy on top of everything else Trump stands for are lost to any appeal to human decency.  We're going to have to do this by stimulating the highest possible voter turnout on our own side.

Which brings me to what most will probably consider the big news of the week -- Trump's pick for the Supreme Court.  I have little to add to what I said about this a couple of weeks ago -- we always knew what kind of nominee Trump would choose, and knowing the individual's name makes little difference.  Again, the results will likely be far less apocalyptic and far less lasting than the doomsayers assume.  I'd like to see Kavanaugh rejected by the Senate and the seat held vacant until 2021 so a Democrat can fill it (after McConnell's treatment of Garland, this would be fully justified), or at least until after this year's election so that a hopefully Democratic Senate majority can force Trump to nominate a more centrist candidate; but the odds of this being possible seem remote.  It would require Collins and/or Murkowski to defect and all the red-state Democrats who are up for re-election to stand fast.  It's worth a try, but we mustn't let the near-certain failure of such an effort plunge us into another tiresome round of recriminations, "we're fucked", and cynicism right before the election.

And that brings me to the real threat this nomination poses.  On some sites I'm already seeing a good deal of pre-emptive venom aimed at the red-state Democratic Senators who might vote to confirm, suggesting that the party should abandon them -- or even that progressives should abandon the party -- if they do.  In other words, Democrats who vote the wrong way some of the time should be replaced by Republicans who will vote the wrong way all of the time.  If Kavanaugh is confirmed, the proper response is to saddle the country with a continuing or even enlarged Republican Senate majority.

This is madness.  If those who still support Trump are lost to any appeal to human decency, then progressives like this are lost to any appeal to sanity.  They are de facto fellow travelers -- the practical effect of their stance and actions, which is all that matters, is the same as the practical effect of being a Republican.  They represent an additional hurdle, hopefully a small one, which our turnout efforts will have to overcome.  That's the real danger which the Kavanaugh nomination presents -- the danger of another eruption of purist rejectionism and attacks on our own side at the worst possible time.  We're already facing an utterly disgraceful lack of support by the party establishment for some progressive primary winners.  Progressive rejection of more centrist Democratic candidates is not a response to that problem but a compounding of it.  Our turnout-boosting efforts will need to overcome both obstacles.

Fortunately, the results of special elections over the past year suggests that most ordinary voters are tuning out the negativity and focusing on the task at hand -- getting as many Republicans as possible out of office.  Some our bloggers, commentators, and party leaders could learn a thing or two from them.