Dante, Trump and the moral cowardice of the G.O.P.
By Charles Sykes
July 21, 2019
America
One of John F. Kennedy’s favorite quotes was something he thought came from Dante: “The hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who in time of moral crisis preserve their neutrality.”
As it turns out, the quote is apocryphal. But what Dante did write was far better, and it came vividly to mind last week as Republicans failed to take a stand after President Trump’s racist tweets and chants of “Send her back,” directed at Representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, who immigrated here from Somalia, at a Trump rally in North Carolina.
In Dante’s Inferno, the moral cowards are not granted admission to Hell; they are consigned to the vestibule, where they are doomed to follow a rushing banner that is blown about by the wind. When Dante asks his guide, Virgil, who they are, he explains:
This miserable way is taken by sorry souls of those who lived without disgrace and without praise.
They now commingle with the coward angels, the company of those who were not rebels nor faithful to their God, but stood apart.
They are destined to be forgotten. “The world will let no fame of theirs endure,” Virgil explains. “Let us not talk of them, but look and pass." Dante describes the vast horde who chase after the elusive banner that “raced on so quick that any respite seemed unsuited to it.” Behind the banner, he writes, “trailed so long a file/ of people—I should never have believed/ that death could have unmade so many souls.”
President Trump was not merely using racist tropes; he was calling forth something dark and dangerous.
And to those ranks we can now add all the politicians, pundits and camp followers who refused to take a stand when they were confronted with this stark moral choice posed by Mr. Trump’s racist attacks on four minority freshmen Democratic women.
Despite some feeble attempts at rationalization, there was clarity to the president’s language and his larger intent. Mr. Trump was not merely using racist tropes; he was calling forth something dark and dangerous.
The president did not invent or create the racism, xenophobia and ugliness on display last week; they were all pre-existing conditions. But simply because something is latent does not mean it will metastasize into something malignant or fatal. Just because there is a hot glowing ember does not mean that it will explode into a raging conflagration.
In a healthy society, that burning ember may not ever be completely extinguished. But the mores, values and taboos of society would keep it controlled, isolated and small. Now Mr. Trump is stoking the fire.
Abraham Lincoln appealed to our “better angels.” Trump has given us permission to indulge our fouler impulses.
Democracy is fragile because we are all an odd mix of prejudices, vices, virtues, bigotries and aspirations. We can be demons or angels. That’s why moral leadership matters; society can go either way. “The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either,” argued Alexander Solzhenitsyn, “but right through every human heart—and through all human hearts.”
This is why what Mr. Trump is doing is so dangerous and destructive. Abraham Lincoln appealed to our “better angels.” The president has given us permission to indulge our fouler impulses.
And so we have Americans chanting, “Send her back! Send her back!”
Privately, we are told, some Republicans were horrified. But few were willing to speak out publicly. They chose to stand apart.
This is where the G.O.P.’s Faustian bargain has led: Their moral compromises and silence have become a habit.
Someday, we can expect to read lachrymose mea culpas from members of the G.O.P. who will confess that they regretted siding with Mr. Trump or remaining silent, and they will unburden their freighted consciences in memoirs and op-ed pieces.
They will assure us that their silence did not reflect who they really are. But it did because this was the moment when they had to make a choice.
Unfortunately, this is where the G.O.P.’s Faustian bargain has led: Their moral compromises and silence have become a habit. The small surrenders become larger ones until there is nothing left.
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Some of them are motivated by fear of the president’s wrath or by the political pragmatism of politicians who are obsessed with self-preservation. Others simply hope to ride out the news cycle, hoping the entire incident will be quickly forgotten.
But at some level, I suspect, they know that this was a defining moment. And it reminds us that while we celebrate political and moral courage, we forget that genuine political courage is vanishingly rare. We remember St. Thomas More but gloss over the fact that he stood virtually alone among his peers in speaking truth to the power of his age. Hilaire Belloc captured the moment:
Most of the great bodies—all the bishops except Fisher—had yielded. They had not yielded with great reluctance but as a matter of course. Here and there had been protests, and two particular monastic bodies had burst, as it were, into flame. But that was exceptional. To the ordinary man of the day, anyone, especially a highly placed official, who stood out against the King’s policy was a crank.
Unlike his colleagues, Thomas More did not make a bargain with his soul.
And those who did? Who remembers them now? As Virgil counseled, “Let us not talk of them, but look and pass.”
N.S.: I was gladdened to learn that either Charlie Sykes, or his researcher had read a little literature, somewhere along the way.
A little literary gloss does wonders stylistically for a pathetic exercise in triangulation and non sequitur.
Mr. Sykes’ invocation of Dante (and More and Belloc) makes no sense whatsoever, as a condemnation of the president, or the GOP.
Even if it had made sense, Dante was not a prophet, commissioned by God, to spread the word.
“Despite some feeble attempts at rationalization, there was clarity to the president’s language and his larger intent. Mr. Trump was not merely using racist tropes; he was calling forth something dark and dangerous.
“The president did not invent or create the racism, xenophobia and ugliness on display last week; they were all pre-existing conditions.”
Mr. Sykes and I do not live in the same country. I live in New York City, a city where I can walk miles through a shopping district like the Ladies Shopping Mile, and not encounter a single white man employee, and possibly no white American female employees, either.
In my city, it is dangerous for a white man to travel on public transit, even during rush hour, due to violent black racism.
Mr. Sykes defends Ilhan Omar. Ilhan Omar is jihadist scum, and is likely a criminal who entered this country, and attained American citizenship, via fraud. The problem isn’t with American patriots who shout, “Send her back!” The problem is with people like Mr. Sykes, who defend her, and who are loyal to dark powers.
Mr. Sykes has hated Donald Trump since the latter became a Republican.
“Dante, Trump and the moral cowardice of the G.O.P.” is the right title to the wrong essay.
Tens of millions of whites voted for Donald Trump to put an end to over 60 years of federally-sanctioned race war against them. But Trump betrayed them.
Mr. Sykes ought to be happy about that, but he earns hundreds of thousands of dollars per year, as a fake conservative in the service of racial socialists, to malign the President. Oh, he probably isn’t a genocidal racist, he just worships Mammon.
The GOP supported the 1964 Quota Act, which reduced whites to second-class citizenship. The GOP then supported the 1965 Third World Act, which reduced whites to third-class citizenship.
The GOP has never repudiated the racism of affirmative action. It talks about “merit,” but believes in, and serves racial spoils to incompetent, racist, non-whites who don’t even vote for it.
My question for Charlie Sykes is the same one I have for the GOP: Why do you hate white people?
Sykes,in 2016,was possibly the first white guy I remember seeing,who the media grabbed onto and then gave abundant airtime to,for Trump bashing.From what I remember,he was a veteran talk show host in Milwaukee--a nobody outside of Wisconsin (which means a nobody--period,lol),but when MSNBC gave him his chance to blast Trump on a regular basis,he suceeded in filling the niche that MSNBC was trying to fill--a Trump hating,conservative,white guy from the Midwest.
ReplyDeleteTalk about filling a role to sell your soul,Dante MUST have a place in hell for phonies like Sykes.
He's no conservative,he's Play-Doh--to be molded by the bosses of MSM to be the character THEY want on television.
Some of the whites who hate their fellow(mostly)non-Hollywood,whites are mentally disturbed(Behar,Cher,Streisand),some have talked themselves into it philosophically (e.g.David Brooks)and used their revamped thinking to write books about it and try to be the leaders of "the new multi-ethnic,diverse society WE are trying to create"(Brooks on PBS last week,with Judy Woodruff).Others like Sykes just wanted to escape anonymity.He'll do or say what others want him to say for money--a mercenary with no credibility.
A true conservative would be trying to stop illegal immigration,be tougher on (black,Mex)crime,end welfare and save your own white people from elimination from the planet.I see nothing on the google searches I looked up,that shows Sykes in favor of any of those conservative viewpoints.
He is now a paid employee of MSNBC--that fact alone--says plenty about Sykes by itself.
--GR Anonymous
1. One only needs to remember the impeachment of Clinton. The Democratic Senators took the whole thing as a joke. Voted almost in "advance" to acquit.
ReplyDelete2. You need to take the hear and read entire statement of Trump before you make judgment. "Go back and make your own land better, then come here and tell us what to do."
The (Derisive) Laugh of the Day
ReplyDeleteMore NBC RACISM--this time concerning doorbell cameras
(GRA)An innocuous story about doorbell cameras,became another reason to accuse whites of racism,on tonights NNN.
Tom Costello(a white guy)initially reported that the device,which takes continuous video images of a homes' frontyard,was indeed solving and preventing crimes,but quickly devolved to race,as Costello snuck in the statement,that "blacks feel as though they are being singled out by (whites)those who believe minorities in their neighborhoods are suspicious."
The inference being,blacks are being persecuted by whites(as usual).
Good ol'"Negro Nightly News"--where even using doorbell cameras is RACIST!
--GR Anonymous
It pays well.
ReplyDelete