Tuesday, September 5, 2017

Peas in a Deplorable Pod


Donald Trump is supposedly unfit for office.  He allegedly has neither the brains, nor the moral stature to be president.  Totally out of control, and bereft of any semblance of human decency, he has no right to occupy the White House.
Sentiments of this sort have become conventional in the mainstream media.  The national press corps is constantly instructing us on the inadequacies of our chief executive.  Meanwhile, not just liberal politicians, but many conservatives, have taken to lecturing Trump on his moral shortcomings.
What has brought forth this flood of vituperation and moralistic posturing?  Our president’s single most egregious deficiency was purportedly his recent failure to distinguish between white supremacists and peace activists.
When, in the aftermath of the Charlottesville riots, he stated that there were good people on both sides of the melee that was too much.  Too suggest that neo-Nazis and Black protesters were equivalent was the height of insensitivity.  It bespoke an inner racism.
But guess what, there is a moral equivalence between the neo-Nazis and the Antifas.  They are peas in the same deplorable pod.  The extremists on both sides of the recent Confederate monuments controversy have more in common than liberals would have us believe.
Trump was not “unhinged” to say what he did.  There are good people on either side of the political divide.  Pointing this out was his way of saying that we should not confuse the KKK, and other bigots, with those who hold right wing opinions.
But let us look a bit more closely at what happened in Virginia.  To begin with, the white supremacists did not initiate the squabble.  Those on the left cast the first stone.  They, out of nowhere, demanded that venerable memorials be torn down.  Poor Robert E. Lee had done nothing, recently, to merit their opprobrium.
Despite accusations that confederate statues were rallying points for bigots, there was no evidence to that effect.  Nor did the theoretically anti-bigotry protestors need to confront the demonstrators who, in fact, had a valid permit to march.  They could have held a counter-event the next day.
The neo-Nazis are not a savory group.  Their opinions are odious.  That they chose to piggyback on the grievances of defenders of Southern traditions was unfortunate, but to depict this as an assault on democracy was ridiculous.  Despite the torchlight processions and vile slogans, they are the fringe of a fringe.
As a Jew, I do not condone anti-Semitism or racism.  Nonetheless, these neo-Nazis were not actual Nazis.  They are home grown fanatics.  There is no Hitler for them to rally around.  Nor will there be concentration camps or a crystal nacht.  They are merely malcontents using a hated symbol in order to be provocative.
But the same can be said about the other side.  The Antifa and Black Lives Matter crowd are equally provocative.  They too are a small band of malcontents who latched on to a larger controversy to gain attention and suppress free speech.  To portray them as injured innocents is absurd.
Those who watched the Charlottesville disturbances on TV would have been hard put to distinguish the combatants.  They wore similar protective gear and wielded comparable weapons.  The only difference was the flags they flew.
So I say, they were undoubtedly morally equivalent.  Both sides are loathsome.  To convert one into heroes for protecting American values, while condemning the other as attacking them is fatuous.  Both sides were assaulting our nation’s traditions.  They both deserve our disgust.
The Culture Wars have grown so vicious that the participants have lost sight of elementary moral truths.  In order to win victories over their foes, they portray complex social questions as black and white.  For these combatants, there are no subtleties or clemency.  They refuse to take any prisoners.
We are, however, living through perilous times.  If we are together to solve the problems we confront, we must exercise good will.  To dismiss those with whom we disagree as unrepentant bullyboys—on either side—is a grievous mistake.
Mean-spirited extremists are callous, wherever they are found.  Let us thus not confuse them with well-intentioned folks, wherever the latter stand in the political landscape.
Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.
Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University

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