Anti-Trump hysteria lets others whitewash their own crimes

[Theodarzna]

I don’t like Donald Trump. I think his executive order barring travel from certain countries is rash and illiberal. And yet I cannot get behind the hyperbolic, Holocaust-citing protests against him. I cannot line up with the idea that he’s a uniquely bad president, possibly the worst ever; that he’s an ‘aberration’, ‘abnormal’, someone we must never ‘normalise’. I can’t do that for the simple reason that treating Trump as abnormal implicitly normalises that which preceded him. It whitewashes history. It forgives, or dilutes, the crimes of past politicians.

The idea that Trump is different — scarily, historically different — is everywhere. ‘Don’t treat Trump as a normal president’, says a headline in the Guardian. Apparently Theresa May hasn’t ‘sufficiently absorbed that Trump is an aberration’. The New Yorker frets over the dangers of ‘welcom[ing] Trumpism into the fold of mainstream American ideas’. Celebs warn against normalising Trump because in truth he’s ‘something terrifying’. Protesters insist he’s an abnormal president, comparable only to one person in history. ‘We are history teachers and we know how this ends,’ said a placard at the Downing St demo last night, complete with images of Trump as Hitler. Pity the kids being taught by these people.

Let’s leave to one side how implicitly anti-democratic is this haughty refusal to confer legitimacy on Trump. How it demeans, not only Trump (which is fine — demean away), but also the 62 million people who voted for him. After all, what is their desire to have Trump run their republic in comparison with the insistence of the more switched-on that he isn’t fit for that job? More importantly is what this de-normalisation drive does for other politicians. It absolves them. It flatters them. It tells them that what they have done — the destabilisation of nations, the destruction of lives — was normal, at least in comparison to this. The left’s arrogant, aristocratic withholding of legitimacy from Trump by extension legitimises his predecessors, including those who did far worse things than Trump has even countenanced.

This is why some pretty unpleasant politicians have been able to rehabilitate themselves via the anti-Trump hysteria. Consider Madeleine Albright. She won heaps of Twitter praise last week when she said she might register as a Muslim in protest against Trump’s travel order. This is the same Madeleine Albright who in 1996, as Bill Clinton’s ambassador to the UN, was asked if the surplus deaths of Iraqi children following America’s imposition of sanctions was a price worth paying for weakening Saddam’s rule. Her reply? ‘I think this is a very hard choice, but the price — we think the price is worth it.’

Just think about this. Let it sink into your head. A woman who apologised for, and who was in an administration that was responsible for, great suffering among Muslims can now get brownie points for saying she will register as a Muslim. In what sort of moral universe is it considered worse to restrict the freedom of movement of the citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries than it is to participate in the near-destruction of a Muslim country? In the warped moral universe of anti-Trump hysteria. In the historically illiterate world that has been fashioned by the protesters against him, who tell us he is abnormal and therefore the rest of them are normal; that Trump is evil and therefore others, Albright, were good, or at least better.

Then there’s Hillary Clinton, who was retweeted tens of thousands of times for saying of Trump’s order: ‘This is not who we are.’ But it is who she is. This is the woman who spearheaded the bombing of Libya, helping to plunge that nation into mayhem and creating hundreds of thousands of refugees in the process. Ed Miliband spoke at the Downing St demo. He was a fulsome supporter of the bombing of Libya. The people who helped to make swathes of humanity into refugees are virtue-signalling about Trump’s tough line on refugees. The people who caused, or okayed, instability in Muslim nations are pontificating about Trump’s tough words on Muslim nations. It is morally perverse. By any objective moral measurement, Clinton and Miliband did something worse to the people of Libya than Trump has, and yet this is ignored, or overlooked, drowned in the joyous moral kick that comes from hating Trump.

This is the true danger of historical illiteracy. To describe Trump as abnormal, as a break with proper American politics, makes normal the horrors of the past, of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, of Vietnam, of McCarthyism, of Iraq, Afghanistan and all the rest. It tells us, implicitly, that all of that was normal, better even.

This is my problem with the protests: they promote emotional fury at the expense of historical thinking, and in the process they play down the sins of the past. This is really bad for younger, fresher protesters in particular. They’re encouraged to think that until now, from the war to today, between Hitler and Trump, things had been pretty much okay, or at least ‘normal’. The protests aren’t radical at all. In fact they’re a boon for the warmongers and liars in the corridors of power who spy in the ‘Trump is Hitler’ cry an opportunity to rebuild their own moral standing. The out-of-control hatred for Trump doubles up, unwittingly perhaps, as an uncritical, conformist apology for pre-Trump, for the rot that came before him. It redeems barbarism.

(source)

The cries of how abnormal, demonic, or evil and unique Trumps presidency are ignore and Whitewash the very recent and distant grizzly History of American presidents. At worse this seems a collective establishment whitewash to deny the very real horrors they have done and try to co-opt the Left into ignoring that or even normalizing the atrocities that were committed very recently.

[LaserSharkDFB]

Yawn. Whataboutism made flesh.

[Theodarzna]

Yawn. Whataboutism made flesh.

This is the surreal and painful truth: if Hillary had won there's a very good chance she'd be bombing Syrians and Yemenis, rather than simply denying them visas, and no one would have protested.

[DrMcNinja]

This is the surreal and painful truth: if Hillary had won there's a very good chance she'd be bombing Syrians and Yemenis, rather than simply denying them visas, and no one would have protested.

Something which the Russians are already doing. And Trump seems to be in love with them.

[Underverse]

This is the surreal and painful truth: if Hillary had won there's a very good chance she'd be bombing Syrians and Yemenis, rather than simply denying them visas, and no one would have protested.

I'm not sure what kind of evidence you're basing this postulation on.

[Machismo]

This is the surreal and painful truth: if Hillary had won there's a very good chance she'd be bombing Syrians and Yemenis, rather than simply denying them visas, and no one would have protested.

But Trump did just attack Yemenis, and we managed to kill children in the process. Do you really think Trump gets to hold the moral high ground on that one?

Trump is warming ties with Russia, the very same country that has been bombing Syrian citizens for months. Once again, are you trying to claim moral high ground in the name of Trump?

The irony... almost hurts...

[Theodarzna]

Something which the Russians are already doing. And Trump seems to be in love with them.

So if the bombs have cyrilic writing its a war crime, but if its latin letters its ++Good. Gotcha.

[Dug]

You see the problem with this line of thinking is you claim and get mad when the other side pulls their crap but when your side comes into power all of the sudden its whataboutisms. If you are truly angry then you'll stay angry no matter who's in power. But of course that's not what happens because everyone is biased.

[Garnier Fructis]

(source)

The cries of how abnormal, demonic, or evil and unique Trumps presidency are ignore and Whitewash the very recent and distant grizzly History of American presidents. At worse this seems a collective establishment whitewash to deny the very real horrors they have done and try to co-opt the Left into ignoring that or even normalizing the atrocities that were committed very recently.

Or not, because people constantly complain about those things and with good reason.

Was all of that 'normal?' Perhaps so. But normal does not mean good, and that is the critical flaw in this analysis. Refusing legitimacy to Trump doesn't suddenly make things akin to Vietnam or Afghanistan okay to people in the future. The notion that this 'redeems barbarism' presupposes that Trump won't be worse. Because if people believe that Trump will be much worse, then from that perspective it makes sense to protest more, not less.

[Edge-]

The closest to "normal" Trump would be would be Nixon, and I don't think that's really a great comparison that Trump supporters and "totally seriously independents, guys" want to make...

And the assertion that treating Trump as abnormal normalizes Hiroshima, Vietnam, Iraq etc. is ludicrous and intellectually dishonest. What a nonsense article, and thank goodness it did the usual Trump supporter song and dance of "WHAT ABOUT HILLARY?!", because god knows Trump will never be able to stand up without Hillary there as the third leg of the tripod keeping that sack of flesh up.

[zenkai]

It's pretty sad the state of things, I think we would see a lot from the other side if Hillary would have won, except maybe less people setting cities on fire and Hollywood would STFU. Come to think of it, damn I wish Hillary would have won.

[Independent voter]

People seem to get upset whenever Trump is compared unfavorably to past political figures.

[Shadowmelded]

But Trump did just attack Yemenis, and we managed to kill children in the process. Do you really think Trump gets to hold the moral high ground on that one?

Trump is warming ties with Russia, the very same country that has been bombing Syrian citizens for months. Once again, are you trying to claim moral high ground in the name of Trump?

The irony... almost hurts...

No answer to this then Theo?

[Dextroden]

People seem to get upset whenever Trump is compared unfavorably to past political figures.

People seemed to get upset whenever Obama was compared unfavorably to past political figures.

I wonder why.

[Dug]

No answer to this then Theo?

That's pretty much Theo's bread and butter. Ignoring points that completely demolish their argument.

[Edge-]

It's pretty sad the state of things, I think we would see a lot from the other side if Hillary would have won, except maybe less people setting cities on fire and Hollywood would STFU. Come to think of it, damn I wish Hillary would have won.

Which cities are being set on fire?

And why are you listening to people in Hollywood if they annoy you? I mean, I've largely avoided all that nonsense throughout the whole election. Except for Winona Ryders face at the SAG awards. That was like, 2 minutes of pure awesome and giggles.

[Fat Mac]

That's an insult to TR.

he was joking . we all know you meant Hitler

[zenkai]

Which cities are being set on fire?

And why are you listening to people in Hollywood if they annoy you? I mean, I've largely avoided all that nonsense throughout the whole election. Except for Winona Ryders face at the SAG awards. That was like, 2 minutes of pure awesome and giggles.

Because every time one of those dumbasses open their mouth my news feed gets flooded from multiple sources.

[Theodarzna]

Or not, because people constantly complain about those things and with good reason.

Was all of that 'normal?' Perhaps so. But normal does not mean good, and that is the critical flaw in this analysis. Refusing legitimacy to Trump doesn't suddenly make things akin to Vietnam or Afghanistan okay to people in the future. The notion that this 'redeems barbarism' presupposes that Trump won't be worse. Because if people believe that Trump will be much worse, then from that perspective it makes sense to protest more, not less.

Are any of those perpetrators of those crimes "LITERALLY HITLER!"

Hating Trump or thinking Trump is less legitimate than Nixon or will make Nixon look like a paragon of integrity, is precisely what the article is about. Nixon dropped 500,000 tonnes of bombs on Cambodia, killing 100,000 people. He dropped a million tonnes of bombs on Vietnam, killing 500,000 people. He fought a secret war in Laos for which the death toll is simply unknown. What is with the ahistorical hysteria over Trump? I can't remember anything like this. It is doing serious harm to rational political debate in the here and now and to historical memory.

So the protests are purely based on a guess.

[Fat Mac]

And why are you listening to people in Hollywood if they annoy you? I mean, I've largely avoided all that nonsense throughout the whole election. Except for Winona Ryders face at the SAG awards. That was like, 2 minutes of pure awesome and giggles.

that was pretty awesome