Incivility And Insulated Elites
The latest media-created brouhaha over civility and the lack thereof actually reflects an inherent belief by our political and corporate elites that they should never actually be held accountable for their actions and that they should never have to be confronted by those harmed by the decisions they have made. They hide behind legalisms, blame underlings for their illegality, have remarkably timed bouts of forgetfulness, and even lie under oath, knowing full well the worst that will happen will be a slap on the wrist and another job elsewhere.
By all rights, directly confronting the architects and implementers of policies we might oppose seems like the most perfectly logical and effective way to make sure our voice is heard, especially when it is done in a calm and respectful manner. It is only logical that a face-to-face encounter is usually far more effective than a million people marching to oppose a policy when those architects are actually hundreds of miles away, although there is no doubt that a groundswell of opposition like that is powerful on its own. There is a reason that lobbyists and donors fork over mega-dollars to political figures and that is the very one-on-one access to express their views which that money provides and which is largely unavailable to the owner of a small business or individuals like you and me.
It certainly is indisputable that calmly and respectfully asking a person who is the mouthpiece for the policy of ripping months-old babies away from their parents to leave your restaurant is a far better example of the long and distinguished history of civil disobedience in this country than mowing down an innocent civilian who was protesting a march promoting hatred and racism with your car.
However, the reaction of the political elites, unfortunately on both sides of the aisle, seems to have almost conflated the two as being equally violent and uncivil, in essence equating having to deal with discomfort of being politely shunned with actual physical violence. This is reflective of the personal protective cocoon that these elites believe they are entitled to and the belief that the only repercussions for their actions should be political.
Similarly, to not understand the difference between shunning and shaming the architects of a clearly immoral policy and the refusal to serve someone who just happens to be black or gay simply denies the agency of power. That again allows the elites to escape responsibility for the actions.
Of course, this is exactly the direction that our country has taken over the last few decades. War criminals like Henry Kissinger, Elliot Abrams, Dick Cheney, John Yoo, and George Bush walk free in this country and can even rehabilitate their reputations given enough time. Corporate criminals who nearly destroyed the world’s financial system, people like Anthony Mozillo, Dick Fuld, Joe Cassano, and all the other heads of the major Wall Street banks, took their enormous payouts and walked away scot free. Some like Lloyd Blankfein and Jamie Dimon continue in their jobs today.
The feeling of invulnerability in these elites is compounded by the security bubble so many of them live in in today’s world. Scott Pruitt is the walking exemplar of that, requiring a full-time security detail to protect him from the uncomfortable moments of being confronted in an airline terminal by a man actually using an expletive. Last night Mitch McConnell was viciously attacked with a few angry words, such as asking how he sleeps at night, as he and his Cabinet secretary wife got into to their chauffeured Suburban wagon surrounded by security. And now Sarah Sanders has apparently been so traumatized by her inability to eat where she wants that she is receiving Secret Service protection.
Of course, the epitome of this unaccountability is Donald Trump himself. The six-times bankrupted narcissist and racketeer has never paid any real personal price for his criminality or venality. This is a man who is so weak he can not in reality actually endure the discomfort of firing anyone himself, face-to-face, despite pretending to do so weekly on TV; a man who spends hours each day abusing and belittling anyone and everyone but is so thin-skinned he apparently can not broach any direct criticism; a man who goes from one grift to another, stealing millions from millions, and never bats an eye or pays a personal price.
For all these people, including large segments of the pundit class, politics and business is sport, a place where you can shake hands and go have a beer after the game is over with full knowledge that there will be another game tomorrow. The victims of their actions, however, don’t have that option when they are lying dead in the sands of Iraq or getting evicted from their foreclosed homes or bankrupted by illness or shot while attending high school.
But these elites don’t want to see or hear from their victims; they just want to keep playing the game. That is why 1960s civil rights activists were called “uppity Negroes”; why Cindy Sheehan was called a “professional griever“; why Sandy Hook never happened; and why David Hogg is called a “crisis actor”; and why the owner of the Red Hen is being “uncivil”.
The aversion to being politely asked to leave a restaurant and seeing it as an enormous act of incivility shows just how brittle and insulated these elites have come. Simply being personally confronted with the moral outrage of what they are doing is now too much for these people. Look, I don’t condone any violence and I don’t even think there should be protests outside these people’s homes – family areas should be off limits. But I am old enough to remember when the Weather Underground actually bombed the Capitol building. Now that struck real fear in the hearts of the political elite. That was real incivility that physically threatened those who were implementing the immorality of the Vietnam War. Today’s elites seem equally threatened by being simply shunned and shamed in a restaurant. But that’s what happens when you have never been personally held accountable for your actions.
The remarkable irony is that, as Steve Bannon taught Trump, fear is the greatest motivator. And Trump is running the one of the most racist, fear-mongering campaigns for the midterm elections than we have probably seen since George Wallace. But those very same people peddling that fear are actually disturbed, frightened, and outraged by a few nasty words and some societal shaming.
