October 9, 2024 | Reading Time: 5 minutes
For Trump and the GOP, no collective fate in times of crisis
In rightwing politics, whether it’s a war, a pandemic or a series of hurricanes, we’re not all in this together. Only the strong survive.
During a national emergency, it’s good to say that “we’re all in this together.” Whether it’s a war, a pandemic or a series of hurricanes, everyone is affected. Everyone has a stake in the outcome. And if we don’t believe and act like we are all in this together, the crisis will get worse.
This idea of collective fate in the face of dire threats to our lives and fortunes is conventional. So much so that it beggars belief when rightwing politicians tell us that, actually, we’re not all in this together.
It beggars belief so much that it’s just easier, mentally speaking, for ordinary people who have a sense of the national good to say that rightwingers don’t really mean it. It’s easier to believe they really do share the same core values as we do, but aren’t living up to them.
It’s easier to call them hypocrites.
In defiance of God
Rightwingers are not hypocrites, though. They believe American society is divided into ingroups and outgroups. The former is good, right and deserving. The latter is bad, wrong and undeserving. When there’s a national emergency, the federal government should help the ingroup, because it’s the only group that constitutes a “real nation.”
Meanwhile, the outgroup can take care of itself.
Or die trying.
Not only do they believe American society is divided into ingroups and outgroups, they believe it ought to be. The orders of power should be vertical and hierarchical. That is the ideal, because that is “natural.”
For this reason, liberal efforts to flatten the orders of power, so that the outgroup has as many rights and privileges as the ingroup, are seen by rightwingers as a perversion of the natural order of things.
To them, we are not all in this together, because we can’t be.
If we were, that would be in defiance of God.
And that’s why they lie.
Barbarism, not hypocrisy
No matter how often rightwingers tell us, by way of their lying, what they believe, the rest of us cling to the belief that they don’t.
Stubbornly, we insist that they will set aside politics during a national emergency and that, in the end, they will choose nation over party.
While some of us realize that they will never set aside politics, not even during a national emergency, most of us don’t understand why.
The reason?
They already put the nation above all else. The politics that we keep expecting them to set aside are in service to the nation as they define it, and they define the nation in ways most Americans never would.
For most people, the nation is everyone. We’re all in this together.
For rightwingers, the nation is them. You’re with us or against us.
They are not hypocrites. They are the “real Americans,” God’s chosen. They are not failing to live up to their values. They are realizing them.
What the rest of us fail to understand is that those values are horrible. They are not only illiberal and anti-democratic, they are barbarous.
So barbarous that it beggars belief.
It’s easier to call them hypocrites.
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You can’t shame a zealot
Barbarism, not hypocrisy, is the reason why a Florida Republican could say with a straight face that FEMA funding should come in advance of Hurricane Milton even though she voted to cut it a few weeks prior.
Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna falsely implied that Kamala Harris and the Biden administration were withholding disaster relief, even though she “voted to shut down the federal government, vetoing a measure to extend FEMA funding by $20 billion,” according to the New Republic. “Luna was among 82 House Republicans who voted against the deal and one of 11 Florida lawmakers who cast dissenting votes.”
Luna’s critics would allege that she’s saying one thing but doing another, but it’s the opposite to her. Demanding government money if it helps the ingroup is in keeping with withholding government money if it hurts the outgroup. Indeed, the concept is so natural to Luna that she’s falsely accusing the vice president of doing the very same thing.
When Republicans like Luna do this, critics often despair. They say there’s no bottom for these people. There’s no shame. They’ve abandoned their principles. They’ve followed Donald Trump too far.
Again, it’s the opposite.
They are realizing their principles.
They want a society in which the ingroup gets the blessings of freedom and democracy, and all the government assistance, while the outgroup gets whatever’s coming to it. If a hurricane plows into Florida, God’s chosen must be helped! If it plows into Puerto Rico, well, tough luck.
They want such tyranny, because they believe God wants it.
You can shame a hypocrite.
You can’t shame a zealot.
No such thing as collective fate
Barbarism, not hypocrisy, is also the reason Trump can betray America without risking his reputation among zealots for putting America first.
To them, it doesn’t matter that, as president during the pandemic, he sent Vladimir Putin covid tests for his personal use, as the country struggled with shortages. It doesn’t matter, as my senator Chris Murphy said, that “he decided to let Americans die to keep Putin alive.”
The “America” in “America first” is not America. It’s the ingroup. And the ingroup has more in common with Russia than the outgroup.
Russia is a top-down society in which the orders of power are strictly maintained. Liberal efforts to flatten those orders democratically are crushed, often violently, with every instrument of the state.
In times of national emergency, as there is with Russia’s war against Ukraine, there is no such thing as a collective fate. They don’t believe “we’re all in this together.” The weak are sacrificed by the strong.
Russia is the ideal.
It’s what the ingroup believes America should be.
And if Trump helped an ally in God’s plan, so be it.
Barbarism is bizarre
Joe Biden didn’t say “we’re all in this together,” but that was the nature of his remarks about there being neither blue states nor red states in the face of national emergencies like Hurricanes Helene and Milton.
“There’s one United States of America,” he said, “where neighbors are helping neighbors, volunteers and first-responders are risking everything, including their own lives, to help their fellow Americans.”
To meet our collective fate, we must be able to trust each other, and to do that, everyone must have good information. That’s why Trump and the Republicans are lying so much. It doesn’t matter that they’re hurting their own. What matters to them is preventing the spirit of togetherness from destabilizing rightwing forces that keep us apart.
Biden offered a liberal alternative to barbarism.
Solidarity based on truth.
“Former President Trump has led the onslaught of lies,” the president said. “Assertions have been made that property has been confiscated. That’s simply not true. They’re saying people impacted by these storms will receive $750 in cash and no more. That’s simply not true. They’re saying the money needed in this crisis is being diverted to migrants. What a ridiculous thing to say. It’s not true. Now the claims are getting more bizarre. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, from Georgia, is now saying the government is literally controlling the weather – controlling the weather! It’s beyond ridiculous. It’s got to stop.”
The lies and disinformation won’t stop, of course, because zealots like Greene believe they’re fighting for their country. They believe Donald Trump is their champion. They believe they are God’s chosen.
If they were hypocrites, they could be shamed into doing the right thing and acting like we really are all in this together. Hypocrisy isn’t the problem, though. Barbarism is, no matter how bizarre it seems.
John Stoehr is the editor of the Editorial Board. He writes the daily edition. Find him @johnastoehr.
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