Draw the line
Those of us ethically devoted to the First Amendment and morally constrained from interfering with it have a dilemma. At what point is the MAGA message too toxic and too corrupting to repeat? Where and how should we draw the line, and is it anti-democratic or anti-free speech to draw any line at all?
It isn’t that the MAGA message is especially attractive in any sense, it’s that it thrives in the absence of any immediate contradiction. We have seen it happen over and over again when the mainstream media brings a fascistic Republican member of Congress on their show in order to “interview” him or her. What inevitably happens is the interviewee ends up shouting over the interviewer some inane whataboutisms or outright lies, and the interviewer is shockingly unprepared to contradict them.
It’s how Republicans get free publicity. It’s how Trump won in 2016. They come on various mainstream programs and shout their message. The thoughtful and intelligent among us think they have been defeated but we are wrong. As long as their message gets heard they don’t care how absurd they look, objectively speaking. Making their message heard is the point. It’s what is known in advertising as product placement, and it works.
If you think about it you will quickly come to realise that this flow of information is mostly in one direction. Their message gets through to us, ours rarely or never gets through to them.
But what about those instances when Fox News has someone on their show like, say, Pete Buttigieg? Doesn’t our message get through to them the way their message gets through to us? Not really. As brilliant and rational as the Secretary of Transportation so often is, he is there to present the soft voice of reason, not shout slogans.
However unfortunate it may be, shouting lies in the form of slogans is far more effective and reaches far more people than speaking the truth in whole paragraphs. It’s because most people receive their information not through the soft voice of reason but the crude and angry voice of simplistic slogans. When those slogans appeal to our fears or prejudices (e.g., “Democrats are coming for your guns!”) they are almost impossible to contradict, let alone eradicate.
The Republican Party today is built on the creaky edifice of slogans, culture wars, performative outrage and lies. This is obvious to us on the outside looking in. But to them it’s a “battle for the soul of the nation,” and the fact that they are in reality battling for the destruction of the nation is completely opaque to most of them.
Very few Republicans understand exactly what the goal of today’s Republican Party is. The goal of today’s Republican Party is nothing less than to install a fascist dictator and his or her descendants in the White House — forever.
The truly frightening part is we must fight this tendency without rest or final victory. They need only succeed once. It ought to be clear to anyone paying attention that the next time Republicans control everything will be the last time we will be allowed back in. If Republicans should return to power in 2025 it will be nothing like 2017. They have come a long way in maturing into the fascistic entity they are today and will not be content to merely pass some pro-rich tax legislation. Next time they’ll be playing for all the marbles.
Odious though it may seem we must deplatform Republicans as much and as often as we can. So distasteful an idea is made somewhat more palatable when you ask yourself if you would give Nazis a seat at the table. Of course you wouldn’t, and neither should you do the same for Republicans.
How is this to be done? Don’t permit them on our shows, don’t repeat what they have to say without surrounding their messages with a bodyguard of truth and contradictory evidence. An evil slogan can do no harm if it’s never broadcast, or held up stripped of its flags and red hats.
If you think about it this whole business is somewhat less odious than you might suppose. We deplatform flat earthers because we don’t have time for their lies, not because we are trying to remove their first amendment rights and silence their voices. Life, simply put, is too short to listen to bullshit.
We have better things to do, and those things include controlling global warming, stopping the war in Ukraine, fighting for social justice and repairing the gap between rich and poor and are too urgent for such distractions. That is why the Republicans must go. They have ceased to be a party and have transmuted into a full time insurrection. And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.