Morality Apathy

It's still hard to tell while we're in the middle of it, but the impeachment question over Trump's Ukraine dealings appears to be a Real Thing rather than cry-wolf passing fancy.

Like everyone else, I'm just in reaction mode. News is coming out so fast that I barely have time to register the initial spin from right and left.

Even many conservatives are acknowledging that the whistleblower's complaint released today lays out a path to impeachment for Democrats to follow. It's trouble for the President. Whether it's "this will be a headache to deal with" trouble versus "this bespeaks real and longstanding problems that may lead to his losing office" depends right now on your partisan perspective.

As expected, of course, Trump's most stalwart defenders see only triumph and nobility in all that's come out from Trump and only nefarious bad faith from those who think otherwise. For them, the whistleblower represents a traitorous act by the intelligence apparatus in DC. Since it seems clear the whistleblower is acting on the information (and urging) of several officials, many conservatives are crying betrayal and treason. It's the Deep State at work, another soft coup attempt by the left. Speaking to a group of staff members, Trump alluded (in his vague, plausibly deniable, just "joking" way) to the way that we used to deal with traitors (i.e., execution).

Such a quasi-threat, however, only underlines the point made by conservative Rod Dreher: Trump is the Deep State. It amazes me how Trump's defenders lurch back and forth between praising Trump's endless many power to stand up to the libs, the state, the UN, and whomever else he targets on the one hand--and Trump's seemingly permanent victim status as helpless to prevent leak after leak, betrayal after betrayal, by current and former staff members who say enough is enough. He's alternately triumphant and martyred depending on the day.

I'm also confused about exactly where conservatives are landing on the question of the ethics of Trump's actions here. Many conservatives view the transcript and the report and come away with "nothing illegal! Nothingburger!" But others (conservative and otherwise) point out that illegality per se isn't the only point. Surely there's plenty that's worrisome in the US President directing a foreign intelligence to dig up dirt on a political opponent. Surely it's troubling to have the President's personal lawyer be connected so intimately with diplomatic relations. Surely it's all too convenient that the "favors" Trump requests of the Ukraine come at the same time that he's withholding aid from them (for rationales that have shifted day by day by day).

My big worry is that conservatives are going to settle, finally, on the idea that there's just nothing wrong with what Trump did. Politicians get to mafia-pressure weaker folk into doing their dirty work.

Theorists of the post-truth era have worried about "reality apathy." In the face of ever-more-difficult-to-detect facsimiles of truth, the worry is that people will simply give up trying to parse the false from the true. Who can tell? Critical thinking gives way to the shrug emoji.

I worry here about an apathy of political morality. Trump has so moved the needle on what is political normal or acceptable, and polarization has made debating that question so difficult, that it becomes almost easier to give up on the idea that presidents ought to be moral at all. There are no guardrails, no limits. Accountability is betrayal. Winning is everything.

It's depressing.

More tomorrow,

JF