So Ted Johnson, the subject of the Politico article political Twitter is so excited by, is an asshole:How One New Hampshire Voter and One Politico Journalist Refused to Hold "a Pig ... a Womanizer ... [an] Arrogant Asshole" Accountablehttps://t.co/tdamDxeExo
— emptywheel (@emptywheel) January 23, 2024
And the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case in Florida? It’s the one that gives Johnson a modicum of pause. “You don’t f— around with classified material. Whoever advised him he could have that — he should have gave that s— up,” he said. “But he was being the stubborn, arrogant person that he is.” And he added, “I didn’t like the way the FBI did it. The raid was ridiculous. And that just emboldened me.”So says emptywheel, and she builds her case in these excerpts from the article:
And trust me, the guy’s a pig, he’s a womanizer — arrogant a—–e,” Johnson said of Trump. “But I need somebody that’s going to go in and lead, and I need somebody that’s going to take care of the average guy.”
“But is taking care of the average guy and breaking the system the same thing?” I said.
“Yes,” he said. “Because they’re all in it for themselves.”
“And if you break the system, what does that look like?”
“Accountability,” he said.As an aside, I’m not interested in the. “why didn’t Politico take this guy apart and refuse to put him back together?” critique so beloved on the internet. Mostly because those people are all as bad as this guy, imagining they are the heroes of their own movies, and and everyone quails before their superior reasoning. Funny how they never tremble before anyone else’s.
Which is the problem with Ted Johnson. He’s done his own research, he’s convinced he’s right. And he’s as cracked a pot as Donald Trump. But so are a lot of people, and Donald Trump didn’t start that. He just drew those people to him like a magnet draws iron filings. But he didn’t start the fire.
It’s precisely the dynamic that I’m preparing to write about: how Trump trained people like Scott Perry and Ted Johnson to hate rule of law while calling that disdain for rule of law “accountability.”Rules for thee, but not for me”? Trump didn’t start that, and he didn’t train anybody in it, either. That selfishness is as old as Cain and Abel. “Law and order” is always about imposing the consequences of the law on others in order to establish order. And “order” in that phrase is always applied to you; no need to apply it to me! I’m the good guy! That’s the person over there who needs to go to jail!
That attitude is even written into our laws now. “Stand your ground” is all about how Trayvon Martin had it coming for “walking while black” and fighting back with an armed white man who accosted Martin and then had to defend himself. “Accountability” is when the “right people” get the consequences the law won’t provide (provided by the “good guys “), and “rule of law” fails when the “wrong people,” like Kyle Rittenhouse, face prosecution for shooting “bad people” on the street
Trump taught us this? Get real. This is just white privilege raising its ugly head above the parapet. If white men can’t have their way, just tear it all down so nobody gets any! Privileged white men are all three year olds at heart.
Trump didn’t teach that. Plenty of people (mostly white men) think if their privileges aren’t still pleasing them in middle age, it somebody else’s fault and they might as well tear it all down in a fit of anger befitting a petulant child.
We called this “Peter Pan syndrome” when it was rich guys being petulant (“cute,” IOW, because they weren’t old enough to be assholes). It was applied to a much younger Stephen Spielberg, and all those “cute boys” who refused to grow up, but were so endearing, mostly because they were rich and famous; and white. Then Trump woke the mob and took all that away. Here, I’ll show you:
Johnson started talking about “Russia-gate” and “Biden’s scandals” and Hunter Biden. What, I wondered, did Hunter Biden have to do with Nikki Haley? “She’s not going to hold anybody accountable for what they’ve done,” Johnson told me. “People need to be held accountable. That’s why you’ve got to break the system to fix the system,” he said. “Because it’s a zero-sum game right now. And to be honest with you, the Democrats are genius. They did anything they could do to win and gain power, even if they lie, cheat, steal. … What they’re doing is they’re destroying the country. Who could bring it back?” He answered his own question: “Trump’s the only one.”ew cites that to criticize Politico for insufficiently challenging the statement about Hunter Biden. But Ted Johnson gives away the whole game there: “People need to be held accountable.” For what? For whatever’s pissing him off, basically. And what’s pissing him off? Something about a “zero-sum game” (uh-huh) and “Democrats…lie, cheat, steal…(tell me again your strategy to bring this man back to sweet reason), and “What they’re doing is destroying the country.” How? Where? What? Do you really think he has answers to those questions? Do you think he even cares?
I’ve met people all my life who talk nonsense like this. This isn’t new, original, sui generis with Trump. It’s just the nattering bullshit of the obnoxious uncle at Thanksgiving. I have a book by a guy who wrote some pretty good biographies of notable Texans, in which he calls LBJ (then the President) a Commie who’s going to destroy America. JFK was greeted at Love Field in ‘63 with some very nasty sentiments about his Presidency. Spiro Agnew tried to play the part of Nixon’s attack dog, lecturing us on the “nattering nabobs of negativism.” Agnew resigned in disgrace because he was indicted for fraud. William Safire, his speech writer, went on to s career of respect and notoriety as an NYT columnist. And you think Trump is an aberration without precedent teaching our “young people” (Johnson’s younger than me or Trump) to be uncivil?
Yeah, right.
Trump is a symptom; not the cause, not the disease. He was brought to the fore by Obama being President for 8 years, which might have been followed by a woman (first a black man, then a woman? And Hillary Clinton, no less. The zeitgeist simply wouldn’t stand for it!) Then came Covid, lockdowns, mask fights, school board fights, book fights, not to overlook the death of George Floyd which prompted some more spasmodic but quickly stifled racial reckoning (on school boards and in book bans and turning “woke” into an epithet and a convenient term to both espouse and deny racism in the same breath. Oh, we’ve had centuries of practice in that).
Trump hasn’t taught us anything, except that all of this is as American as cherry pie. We just still refuse to see it, or take responsibility for it. Like Ted Johnson, we’re more comfortable with blaming somebody else.
Trump is just an avatar, not the inventor, of our political system's (read: white supremacy) worst aspects.
ReplyDeleteJohnson lives in Bedford NH, the town next to where we live and I travel through every day for my commute to work, shop in because it has the closest grocery store to our home, etc. Bedford is a wealthy, upscale community with good schools (we looked at homes there but ultimately were priced out during the housing price boom during the pandemic). Based on the article he moved in just before the housing prices surged and mortgages were low, he has done very well. The Copper Door where he is eating is a nice restaurant, entrees are around $35 and everything adds on to that. We've thought about going for maybe a special occasion, but haven't gotten there (it's hard to get a reservation).
ReplyDeleteIn short, he lives in a very nice upscale community with excellent schools, nice restaurants, low crime, upscale places to shop (the areas only Whole Foods is in Bedford) and more. His home is lovely. He also happens to be the same age as myself. Johnson has a service pension, a good job that allows him to work from home, and a family including grown children that sound to be independent. He lives better than the vast majority of Americans, let alone the rest of the world. It's very hard to take his anger and frankly self-centered view of the world. He comes across as completely lacking in gratitude and appreciation for the life he has and its place in the world. He comes across as vindictive, his desire to "break things" and hold people "accountable" is vengeful and punitive. He wants to see people being hurt.
In a recent conversation, a close life long friend commented that his frustration with talking to the conservatives in his orbit. "How do you teach people to care about someone else? They should have learned that long ago." This same friend has in the last year been forced into bankruptcy for events completely outside of his control, he has lost his house and the very modest assets he had from a lifetime of work. He also lost his father and step-father. If anyone has a right to be angry, it's him, but he isn't. He continues to be dedicated to his family, his very long term community volunteer work and his job. He still worries about others.
In the end Trump isn't a leader, no one that self centered can lead anything. Trump is however a mirror, reflecting back to his followers who they are and what they care about. His followers have agency, they choose to see and feel reinforced by Trump in their anger, bigotry and vengeance. There is nothing new here, this is the dark side of the human condition, it's why two thousand year old faiths, stories and parables are still intimately relevant to us now, despite our beliefs that we are too modern, rational and advanced for such things.
Mr. Johnson is ultimately responsible for himself. He chooses his anger and sense of retribution. He found the avatar for these feelings in Trump, but if Trump didn't exist he would just as likely find them in DeSantis or Haley or someone else. Lets knock the dust from our feet and move onto others that may be more willing to learn and grow, which includes ourselves.