Stand Together for What We Stand For

Michael Gerson argues in his recent editorial that Democrats cannot abandon civility (as well?) and expect to defeat Trumpism. He believes that the incivility of “Democratic tactics…are allowing Trump to audition for the role of Richard M. Nixon [running] as a symbol of social stability and order.”

I often disagree with Gerson, a conservative commentator at the Washington Post. But he is smart and has been fairly consistent in opposing the Trumpian take-over of his Party.

Further, I generally agree with the idea that standing in opposition to Trumpism requires us to ‘be the change,’ to ensure our means match our ends, to enact respect for the rule of law, tolerance, and democratic decision making even as we fight ferociously to defend what we stand for against authoritarianism.

But in this piece Gerson treats Trumpian incivility as a neutral backdrop, when he has an obligation—as a moderate Republican critic of Trumpism—to tilt more heavily toward giving strategic advice to his own side…even more so when the advice he seeks to share is to reign it in and fight more cautiously (even if, implicitly, this increases one’s risk of losing).

It takes no integrity or courage to announce loudly that your opponents need to be more civil. It is no break with incivility to frame the conflict in terms that suggest your opponent's incivility is the problem.

If Gerson really does care about the existential threat facing our Republic—and I believe he does—his patriotic responsibility is to face his own demons, focus his energies on calling out those on his team driving the threat…in order to make it easier or his opponents to defeat those on his team threatening the Republic (if his team continues not only to fail to defeat them internally, but to enable and amplify the threat).

Not only does Gerson’s piece fail, for this reason, to help us come together around the shared goal of saving our Republic, it encourages his opponents to focus their fight against each other, making it less likely that this threat will be contained or defeated.

As someone who, like Gerson, is deeply concerned about current threats to our Republic and to American democracy I think we—all those opposed to Trumpism—need to unite around winning in the midterms. I worry that some on my team are deploying tactics that might do more to mobilize their voters than our own—but my energy and anger is not directed toward them. I encourage them to stay energized and try to be as strategic as possible, but they are not my enemy. I share my tactical concerns internally.

But the threat we all face right now must unite a team that accept all comers and directs all our energy toward winning the midterms. Yes, it is possible that some on our side will say or do things that make others on our team cringe. We will debate, internally, the relative value of this or that basket of tactics. But we must retain our singular focus on unity against the most dangerous threat to our Republic in our lifetimes. 

So, in the end, Gerson's framing here is distracting and dividing us here. We do stand for civility, the rule of law, tolerance and democracy--and civil disobedience, creative forms of non-violent protest, remain central to standing for what we stand for. 

Gerson is critical of HRC for saying “you cannot be civil with a political party that wants to destroy what you stand for.” But he is conveniently overlooking the fact that arguments like his, advanced by moderate Republicans like him, fit perfectly into the Trumpian (and Rovian) playbook. Gerson is calling out his opponents for precisely the crime his team is the most prominent perpetrator of. In earlier editorials he, himself, has said as much—which is why his commentary today, using his political capital as a moderate Republican critical of Trump, is such a betrayal of his own stated goal of thwarting the Trumpian threat.

I do not think Gerson is dishonest, but in the end his argument here strikes me as a dangerous form of anti-democratic gaslighting. If civility refers to the behaviors and norms and attitudes that make democracy both possible and desirable, his argument is also--in the current context, because context matters--deeply uncivil.

Yes, opposition should be civil. We should focus on the midterms and tactics that will mobilize our voters without mobilizing their voters. At the same time, we need to humbly recognize that none of us has the answer key for which tactics are most likely to work. We need to enact ‘what we stand for’ in our tolerance for tactical diversity demonstrated by a commitment to discussions about tactics with all those standing together against the primary threat...and discussions that do not demonize our own teammates and, to the best of our ability, unite us to win the midterms and beyond.