Looming fear of the deplorables
If Republicans drink the Kool- Aid this week, it will be less out of loyalty to Trump as a fear of the deplorables, says Richard Herr
IDENTIFYING an antidemocratic element of the electorate as “a basket of deplorables” was said to have contributed to Hillary Clinton’s loss in the 2016 presidential election. She characterised these Donald Trump supporters as “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic”.
As we await the expected pyrotechnics of Congressional confirmation of the Electoral College on Wednesday, it is now clear how right Clinton was. The prospect of hours of voting on the validity of certified results from some states looms not because Trump wills it. Rather it originates in the venial desire of a rump of Trump loyalists to claim the affection of the 2016 deplorables.
It is clear today that five years ago, Donald Trump managed to parlay his television celebrity into becoming, almost literally, the idol of Clinton’s basket of groups alienated, disaffected and angry with the America around them. Trump used the skills of a snake oil conman and a telly evangelist to appeal to the deplorables to put their trust in him personally.
It is easy to see Trump as a cult leader like Jim Jones ( of Jonestown infamy) who is now demanding that his acolytes in the Congress prove their loyalty to him rather than the US Constitution. However, if the Republicans in Congress drink the Kool- Aid on Wednesday, it will be less out of loyalty to Trump as a fear of the deplorables.
Trump did not create the deplorables in the same way that Jones created the Peoples Temple and then persuaded his flock to follow him to the Guyanese jungle. If anything, Hillary Clinton did as much, if not more, to create the deplorables as a political force than did Trump. Clinton gave the disparate groups who held grievances against the economic, political and or social order of America a common name. It was a name they quickly embraced as a badge of honour which they wore proudly on caps, posters and T- shirts. Then, Don Trump put it on a banner. Virtually all Trump’s 2016 Republican rivals agreed with Clinton. While they did not profess it overtly, these rivals knew the deplorables did not share traditional Republican values. As long as these different groups of malcontents remained diverse and divided, Trump’s rivals did not see a need to co- opt them for their pursuit of the presidential nomination.
What does this ancient history have to do with a normally pro- forma and little-regarded Congressional procedure on January 6?
The scores of failed legal challenges, the several recounts as well as the certification by all states of their results demonstrates that there is no just cause for any objection. Yet, it appears that, quite irrationally, a number of Republicans in both houses of the Congress will object to the legitimacy of the elections that put them into the very offices that will allow them to lodge their objections.
Many commentators have argued these Republicans will be compelled to do this to prove their loyalty to Trump lest his base ( the so- called deplorables) turn on them in 2022 or 2024. This begs any number of questions regarding the degree to which this base will remain coherent after Trump departs the White House and whether Trump will command any loyalty to use either positively or negatively. However, the point of this commentary is to address an issue that increasingly overhangs expectations for democracy in post- Trump America. What is to be done with the attitudes and beliefs that have sustained the cultism by Trump’s deplorables?
At the centre of this cultism is a willingness to put belief over fact. The systematic reinforcement of Trump’s message “trust only me” and ignore the “fake news” was the central mechanism by which Jim Jones controlled his flock. Any independent thought or inquiry by members of the Peoples Temple was punished by beatings and social excoriation.
Democracy has always depended on a public that makes informed decisions based on a thoughtful evaluation of self- interest in the context of community security and needs. Philosophically this is encompassed under the idea of epistemic responsibility – a ten- dollar phrase meaning that anyone with a duty should discharge this on the basis of well- founded knowledge. In a democracy, great power is given to the people to act as wisely as individuals can. A major reason for the 19th century motivation for free public education was to prepare citizens for civic responsibility. The people cannot shirk their obligation to be informed when they go into the voting booth. Yet it is precisely this that has validated Clinton’s description of this basket of
Trump supporters as democratic deplorables. They have willingly transferred their democratic obligation to act on fact- based rationality to a would- be cult leader.
Sadly, it seems that the myth of a Trump cult based on a section of some- time voters who have little historic ties to the Republican Party will cower enough in Congress to stage a symbolic coup against democracy. There are two apparent reasons these Republican members of Congress feel a symbolic act of sedition is acceptable. One is that the system will prevent their Quixotic joust from succeeding. Second, there is a belief the non- deplorables will not hold them to account. We may have to wait until 2022 to see if voter responsibility can make a comeback.