Thursday, June 13, 2024

The Trump Effect

Donald Trump is not like these politicians. The former president is not tacking to the center, and he is not trying to appear less confrontational. Nor does he seek to embrace existing alliances. On the contrary, almost every day he sounds more extreme, more unhinged, and more dangerous. Meloni has not inspired her followers to block the results of an election. Le Pen does not rant about retribution and revenge. Wilders has agreed to be part of a coalition government, meaning that he can compromise with other political leaders, and has promised to put his notorious hostility to Muslims “on ice.” Even Orbán, who has gone the furthest in destroying his country’s institutions and who has rewritten Hungary’s constitution to benefit himself, doesn’t brag openly about wanting to be an autocrat. Trump does. People around him speak openly about wanting to destroy American democracy too. None of this seems to hurt him with voters, who appear to welcome this destructive, radical extremism, or at least not to mind it. 
American media clichés about Europe are wrong. In fact, the European far right is rising in some places, but falling in others. And we aren’t “in danger” of following European voters in an extremist direction, because we are already well past them. If Trump wins in November, America could radicalize Europe, not the other way around.
I admire Anne Applebaum’s argument and analysis, but I was struck by her description of the most right-wing politicians of Europe. Not in contrast to Trump, who, after all, doesn’t hold public office; but in comparison to the recently revealed statements from Justice Samuel Alito. I throw those two in for context. I disagree on the appearance of impartiality, because I remember Scalia skirting that line while pretending he was the smartest person in the room (he never was). Mostly Scalia liked the attention (judges are like teachers to young school children; they shouldn’t be seen in public outside the courtroom); but he knew how to be ideological, and hide it as “jurisprudence” (the doctrine of original intent was his most successful con).

Alito is just ideological, which is just s way of avoiding arguments by declaring your opponent doesn’t have one (but if that’s all you’ve got, neither do you). He doesn’t want to compromise because he doesn’t want to debate. He just wants to be right. William O. Douglas comes to mind as a man confident in the rightness of his opinions, but not someone who would dismiss his opponents as ideologues. a euphemistic way of saying And less interested in, or understanding of the need for, compromise than Marie Le Pen or Giorgio Meloni or Geert Wilders. And he has declared himself beyond the reach of Congress (I’d love to see who has standing to bring that issue up to the Court).

But he still pales alongside Thomas:
In times past, Thomas would have been shamed from office. But as Trump has proven time and again, you cannot shame the shameless.
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