I've decided to try to post more on Mr. Trump and his administration, and more broadly on the challenges that arise in the context of his presidency. I.e., I'm calling it "Trumpwatch" but I reserve the prerogative to write about Congress or state government or the judiciary.
My goal is to try to focus on actual, concrete facts. Actual decisions made and actual things said. My posts will be at hitcoffee, tagged at this link: <http://hitcoffee.com/subject/trumpwatch>. I may reproduce these posts here, too, but frankly, reconciling the different formatting at Wordpress and at Blogspot is a bear, so I may just provide teasers and links.
I'm not sure how often I'll be doing this. I assure you I'll write other posts of the introspective or "meta discussion" variety, and probably write them more here than at Hitcoffee or Ordinary Times. But it's a bit indulgent to focus only on my feelings, etc., and sometimes in adopting that focus, I choose to say things that are needlessly divisive or even insulting. So I'll try more than I have to focus on the concrete, at least when talking about politics. I don't pledge to do this always and consistently, but I'll try to do it more.
Sunday, January 29, 2017
[Hit Coffee post] Trumpwatch #2: where's the travel ban order?
[Cross-posted at Hitcoffee]
[UPDATE: 1-29-2017: I stated in the original post that the EO has no list of countries. That was incorrect. It names Syria, and it refers to “section 217(a)(12) of the INA, 8 U.S.C. 1187(a)(12).” Upon inspection of that statute/code, I find that it refers to a program for visas that makes certain people ineligible, namely those who have “been at any time on or after March 1, 2011″ in Iraq or Syria or “in a country that is designated by the Secretary of State under section 4605(j) of title 50 (as continued in effect under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.)), section 2780 of title 22, section 2371 of title 22, or any other provision of law, as a country, the government of which has repeatedly provided support of acts of international terrorism” or “in any other country or area of concern designated by the Secretary of Homeland Security.” In my quotes, I’ve left out references to certain paragraphs, etc.]
As you may have heard, there's an uproar over Mr. Trump's decision to issue a travel ban on Friday (Jan. 27, 2017) from selected countries and over that decision's affect on people arriving within the last two days. See this WaPo article [paywall] [1] The why's and wherefore's of the ban and the impact it will have on immigrants and those who have been granted permanent resident status are being debated, and that's where the key point of concern ought to lie.
But a question for Mr. Trump: Where is the order on your whitehouse.gov page? I couldn't find it on the "presidential actions" tab that your press office uses to update citizens on what you're doing. I had to hunt elsewhere for it and finally found the text of it at the New York Times. It's probably listed somewhere at the Federal Register online, but I'm still a novice at navigating those pages.
Here's the text the New York Times offers, saying it was supplied by the White House.[2] That text itself doesn't list the banned countries. I presume that list is found in an order issued by, say, the Department of Homeland Security.
I'm obviously implying that the White House is less than eager to be transparent on this issue. However, it's quite possible that it's my own inexperience at monitoring executive orders that's making me have to rely on media sources. At any rate, now you have a link to it in case you wanted to read it. (Disclosure: I haven't read it yet.)
[1] Brady Dennis, Jerry Markon, and Katherine Sahver, "Despite growing dissent, Trump gives no sign of backing down from travel ban," Washington Post, January 29, 2017. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/trump-gives-no-sign-of-backing-down-from-travel-ban/2017/01/29/4ffe900a-e620-11e6-b82f-687d6e6a3e7c_story.html [Accessed 1-29-2017].
[2] "Full executive order text: Trump's action limiting refugees into the US," New York Times, January 27, 2017 https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/27/us/politics/refugee-muslim-executive-order-trump.html [accessed 1-29-2017]
[UPDATE: 1-29-2017: I stated in the original post that the EO has no list of countries. That was incorrect. It names Syria, and it refers to “section 217(a)(12) of the INA, 8 U.S.C. 1187(a)(12).” Upon inspection of that statute/code, I find that it refers to a program for visas that makes certain people ineligible, namely those who have “been at any time on or after March 1, 2011″ in Iraq or Syria or “in a country that is designated by the Secretary of State under section 4605(j) of title 50 (as continued in effect under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.)), section 2780 of title 22, section 2371 of title 22, or any other provision of law, as a country, the government of which has repeatedly provided support of acts of international terrorism” or “in any other country or area of concern designated by the Secretary of Homeland Security.” In my quotes, I’ve left out references to certain paragraphs, etc.]
As you may have heard, there's an uproar over Mr. Trump's decision to issue a travel ban on Friday (Jan. 27, 2017) from selected countries and over that decision's affect on people arriving within the last two days. See this WaPo article [paywall] [1] The why's and wherefore's of the ban and the impact it will have on immigrants and those who have been granted permanent resident status are being debated, and that's where the key point of concern ought to lie.
But a question for Mr. Trump: Where is the order on your whitehouse.gov page? I couldn't find it on the "presidential actions" tab that your press office uses to update citizens on what you're doing. I had to hunt elsewhere for it and finally found the text of it at the New York Times. It's probably listed somewhere at the Federal Register online, but I'm still a novice at navigating those pages.
Here's the text the New York Times offers, saying it was supplied by the White House.[2] That text itself doesn't list the banned countries. I presume that list is found in an order issued by, say, the Department of Homeland Security.
I'm obviously implying that the White House is less than eager to be transparent on this issue. However, it's quite possible that it's my own inexperience at monitoring executive orders that's making me have to rely on media sources. At any rate, now you have a link to it in case you wanted to read it. (Disclosure: I haven't read it yet.)
[1] Brady Dennis, Jerry Markon, and Katherine Sahver, "Despite growing dissent, Trump gives no sign of backing down from travel ban," Washington Post, January 29, 2017. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/trump-gives-no-sign-of-backing-down-from-travel-ban/2017/01/29/4ffe900a-e620-11e6-b82f-687d6e6a3e7c_story.html [Accessed 1-29-2017].
[2] "Full executive order text: Trump's action limiting refugees into the US," New York Times, January 27, 2017 https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/27/us/politics/refugee-muslim-executive-order-trump.html [accessed 1-29-2017]
Saturday, January 28, 2017
Mr. Trump's memos, #1: deportation priorities and sanctuary jurisdictions
[Cross-posted at Hit Coffee]
On January 23, 2017, Mr. Trump issued an executive order, "Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States."
It is unclear to me what federal funds can actually be denied. What I would need to know is how federal funds are currently granted to local jurisdictions and under what conditions. I suspect Congress allocates such funds either by directly dispensing it, by creating agencies that dispense the funds through prescribed rules, or by granting the executive branch the discretion in certain cases to allocate funds to local jurisdictions. Funds dispensed the first two ways, I presume, are "mandated by law" while those dispensed the second way would fall under Mr. Trump's discretion.
I would also need to know whether a local jurisdiction would be able to sue in court if funds typically allocated for reasons unrelated to immigration enforcement are denied because that local jurisdiction refuses to comply with that enforcement. There may be a 10th amendment issue at stake. My non-lawyerly reading of NFIB v. Sibelius and of how the SCOTUS arrived at its decision in South Dakota v. Dole suggests the feds can go only so far in conditioning a local jurisdiction's receipt of funds upon that jurisdiction performing certain actions.
I suppose if certain funds are allocated to enhance a jurisdiction's enforcement of federal law, and especially federal immigration law, then it will be relatively easy to withhold funds. But the further the funds' purpose strays from immigration enforcement, the harder it will be for the administration to deny the funds. In short, I think Mr. Trump probably has an uphill battle if he wants to deny even discretionary federal funding to "sanctuary jurisdictions."
For deportation priorities, one thing I don't know is how much the priorities are mandated by law and how much truly reside in the executive's discretion. It seems to me that absent some legislative directive that the executive "shall" deport someone, the president has the discretion to decide against whom he wishes to act. If someone is in the US illegally, that fact in itself makes him or her a candidate for deportation.\
I suspect--or hope--that deportation involves at least some due process. At the very least, the government should, in my opinion, have to prove that the person to be deported is in the US illegally. I'd also hope that the government must dot its i's and make sure the paperwork is filled out correctly and that failure to do so would at least frustrate the government's claim.
When it comes to the actual priorities stated in Mr. Trump's EO, they can be construed to subject anyone to deportation who is already eligible. Therefore, that portion of the EO seems less like "priorities" and more like a statement that the executive will deport whomever it chooses, especially the statement singling out people who "[i]n the judgment of an immigration officer, otherwise pose a risk to public safety or national security." The provision that someone who has "been charged with any criminal offense, where such charge has not been resolved" suggests to me that all any officer will have to do will be to accuse someone of a crime then that person will become a "priority." Do "willful misrepresentation in connection with any official matter or application before a governmental agency" and abusing "any program related to receipt of public benefits" apply to registering one's children for school or for such things like getting a fishing license?
Here's what I don't know. Perhaps the terms stated in the list of priorities have well-established meanings of which I'm ignorant. Perhaps what seems like the widest statement of discretion--the risk to public safety or national security--requires the immigration officer to jump through certain hoops or tests before he or she can invoke it. And perhaps even Mr. Obama had reserved that type of discretion for the immigration officer.
I don't have strong convictions on immigration. I'm not bothered by having to press "1" for English or about people speaking languages around me which I can't understand. (When I was much younger I had such problems, but I don't anymore.)
I don't hold much of a personal grudge against people who are in the US illegally. I get a little testy at the many discussions of "the dreamers" that ignore completely the role their parents played in putting them in their situation. But that testiness doesn't affect my belief that the humane and necessary thing to do is to accommodate them and regularize their status. I would leave DACA in place, as Mr. Trump, I understand, has decided to do for the time being. I believe that certain people are in the short term facing labor market competition with immigrants and that their suffering ought to be acknowledged. But I believe that in the long term and in the aggregate, immigrants contribute more than they take. I do have a philosophical view that having borders implies restricting access somehow. I believe that there are more and less humane ways to do it and that we ought to opt for the more humane. But I also believe that any form of restriction, no matter how fair or how humane, is going to catch some good, decent people in a bind they don't personally deserve.
When it comes to denying funds to "sanctuary jurisdictions," I don't have a problem with, say, denying immigration enforcement funds to local jurisdictions that refuse to comply with immigration laws. I'd have a much greater problem the further one goes from "immigration enforcement" to funds for other purposes. Even if I'm right that the president will face an uphill battle in an attempt to deny such funds, it's likely that there will be a battle and a number of years of uncertainty. And while I suspect my prognosis is probably right, I'm not certain. And even if I am mostly right, perhaps the battle will move the needle. Trump might not be able to deny a whole loaf to sanctuary jurisdictions, but he might be able to deny a much bigger portion than I'll have anticipated.
When it comes to the priorities, I'd set them differently. My highest priority would be, in descending order of priority, the following:
On January 23, 2017, Mr. Trump issued an executive order, "Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States."
Summary
The executive order does many things, and I will focus only on two of them. First, it declares that his administration will seekEnsure that jurisdictions that fail to comply with applicable Federal law [concerning immigration--GC] do not receive Federal funds, except as mandated by lawSecond, the EO also sets guidelines for deportation priorities. The department of Homeland Security and the Justice Department are to prioritize for deportation those immigrants who
(a) Have been convicted of any criminal offense;
(b) Have been charged with any criminal offense, where such charge has not been resolved;
(c) Have committed acts that constitute a chargeable criminal offense;
d) Have engaged in fraud or willful misrepresentation in connection with any official matter or application before a governmental agency;
(e) Have abused any program related to receipt of public benefits;
(f) Are subject to a final order of removal, but who have not complied with their legal obligation to depart the United States;
or (g) In the judgment of an immigration officer, otherwise pose a risk to public safety or national security.
My thoughts
It is unclear to me what federal funds can actually be denied. What I would need to know is how federal funds are currently granted to local jurisdictions and under what conditions. I suspect Congress allocates such funds either by directly dispensing it, by creating agencies that dispense the funds through prescribed rules, or by granting the executive branch the discretion in certain cases to allocate funds to local jurisdictions. Funds dispensed the first two ways, I presume, are "mandated by law" while those dispensed the second way would fall under Mr. Trump's discretion.
I would also need to know whether a local jurisdiction would be able to sue in court if funds typically allocated for reasons unrelated to immigration enforcement are denied because that local jurisdiction refuses to comply with that enforcement. There may be a 10th amendment issue at stake. My non-lawyerly reading of NFIB v. Sibelius and of how the SCOTUS arrived at its decision in South Dakota v. Dole suggests the feds can go only so far in conditioning a local jurisdiction's receipt of funds upon that jurisdiction performing certain actions.
I suppose if certain funds are allocated to enhance a jurisdiction's enforcement of federal law, and especially federal immigration law, then it will be relatively easy to withhold funds. But the further the funds' purpose strays from immigration enforcement, the harder it will be for the administration to deny the funds. In short, I think Mr. Trump probably has an uphill battle if he wants to deny even discretionary federal funding to "sanctuary jurisdictions."
For deportation priorities, one thing I don't know is how much the priorities are mandated by law and how much truly reside in the executive's discretion. It seems to me that absent some legislative directive that the executive "shall" deport someone, the president has the discretion to decide against whom he wishes to act. If someone is in the US illegally, that fact in itself makes him or her a candidate for deportation.\
I suspect--or hope--that deportation involves at least some due process. At the very least, the government should, in my opinion, have to prove that the person to be deported is in the US illegally. I'd also hope that the government must dot its i's and make sure the paperwork is filled out correctly and that failure to do so would at least frustrate the government's claim.
When it comes to the actual priorities stated in Mr. Trump's EO, they can be construed to subject anyone to deportation who is already eligible. Therefore, that portion of the EO seems less like "priorities" and more like a statement that the executive will deport whomever it chooses, especially the statement singling out people who "[i]n the judgment of an immigration officer, otherwise pose a risk to public safety or national security." The provision that someone who has "been charged with any criminal offense, where such charge has not been resolved" suggests to me that all any officer will have to do will be to accuse someone of a crime then that person will become a "priority." Do "willful misrepresentation in connection with any official matter or application before a governmental agency" and abusing "any program related to receipt of public benefits" apply to registering one's children for school or for such things like getting a fishing license?
Here's what I don't know. Perhaps the terms stated in the list of priorities have well-established meanings of which I'm ignorant. Perhaps what seems like the widest statement of discretion--the risk to public safety or national security--requires the immigration officer to jump through certain hoops or tests before he or she can invoke it. And perhaps even Mr. Obama had reserved that type of discretion for the immigration officer.
What I'd like to see
I don't have strong convictions on immigration. I'm not bothered by having to press "1" for English or about people speaking languages around me which I can't understand. (When I was much younger I had such problems, but I don't anymore.)
I don't hold much of a personal grudge against people who are in the US illegally. I get a little testy at the many discussions of "the dreamers" that ignore completely the role their parents played in putting them in their situation. But that testiness doesn't affect my belief that the humane and necessary thing to do is to accommodate them and regularize their status. I would leave DACA in place, as Mr. Trump, I understand, has decided to do for the time being. I believe that certain people are in the short term facing labor market competition with immigrants and that their suffering ought to be acknowledged. But I believe that in the long term and in the aggregate, immigrants contribute more than they take. I do have a philosophical view that having borders implies restricting access somehow. I believe that there are more and less humane ways to do it and that we ought to opt for the more humane. But I also believe that any form of restriction, no matter how fair or how humane, is going to catch some good, decent people in a bind they don't personally deserve.
When it comes to denying funds to "sanctuary jurisdictions," I don't have a problem with, say, denying immigration enforcement funds to local jurisdictions that refuse to comply with immigration laws. I'd have a much greater problem the further one goes from "immigration enforcement" to funds for other purposes. Even if I'm right that the president will face an uphill battle in an attempt to deny such funds, it's likely that there will be a battle and a number of years of uncertainty. And while I suspect my prognosis is probably right, I'm not certain. And even if I am mostly right, perhaps the battle will move the needle. Trump might not be able to deny a whole loaf to sanctuary jurisdictions, but he might be able to deny a much bigger portion than I'll have anticipated.
When it comes to the priorities, I'd set them differently. My highest priority would be, in descending order of priority, the following:
- Those convicted of, or who confess to, violent felonies
- Those convicted of, or who confess to, violent misdemeanors
- Those convicted of, or who confess to, felonies
- Those convicted of a conspiracy to commit a violent crime
Saturday, January 14, 2017
"Don't normalize" is a losing argument
[Note: I've also posted this at Hitcoffee]
Some Trump opponents argue that we shouldn't "normalize his election." It's a losing argument and not likely to convince anyone of anything. In fact, it's likely to make some people defensive who can otherwise be brought to oppose Mr. Trump or at least some of his most egregious actions.
Trump's campaign was based on an unprecedented appeal to racism, xenophobia, and violence. (Or "unprecedented" for the candidate of a major party since World War II.) A good number--perhaps small, but still too many for comfort--of his supporters identify openly with the "alt right" or other white nationalist creeds, and one of his "senior" advisors used to be an editor for an online magazine that gave a voice to some alt right groups. Further, it appears that Mr.Trump has either declined to disavow them, waited too long to disavow them, or has been too equivocal in disavowing them. (For a dissenting view, see Scott Alexander.)
There are other sins, too, and I haven't even touched on the in some ways more disturbing implications of Mr. Trump's presidency for foreign policy.
Those who say "don't normalize" the election are saying this is no ordinary transfer of power. They're pushing back against a tempting story that goes, "well, two people ran for election and one of them won, so let's all come together and support the new president, and better luck next time to the losers." The "don't normalize" people are saying that approach is insufficient. It doesn't represent the gravity of what has already happened and doesn't create a bulwark against what might happen. In a very real sense, that approach makes "normal" that which ought never be normal and until recently wasn't even openly sayable.
But raising the "don't normalize" argument creates an unnecessary hurdle for Trump opponents. With the "don't normalize" argument, they now have to explain what normalization is, why it's bad, how not to normalize, and how any given action a "normalizer" undertakes actually constitutes normalization--all that before and in addition to criticizing anything of substance. And the what's, why's, and how's are more difficult than it might seem from a Trump opponent's perspective. For one thing, what does it mean as a practical matter to "normalize"? As Noah Millman has said,
I don't know the answer to that question. Perhaps because Trump hasn't even assumed office yet, "don't normalize the election" might be a more winnable or at least plausible argument because he hasn't had a chance to do much yet other than signal certain policies and criticize people's acting ability. Maybe when the time comes, we can follow Matt Yglesias's suggestion and focus on the actual policies and humdrum of politics. Or maybe we could do more than that (although we should probably do that). Take Rebecca Trotter's blog. She'd possibly disagree with my admonition against the "don't normalize" argument, but even if she does, she offers concrete things we can do in her series of "daily acts of resistance" posts and her ideas on "what resistance to Trump looks like." I'm don't read her as often as I should--and I'm not prepared to say I necessarily agree with her ideas for resistance--but she's offering something concrete.
Maybe Trump is an authoritarian who may bring us closer to the coming next presidential tyranny. Maybe he'll turn out to be the weak-willed, thin-skinned, incompetent his actions so far suggest he is. A third possibility is that he's just a regular politician who'll both modify, and fit in to, the institutional norms and incentives that are the presidency.
I realize there is real fear out there. Perhaps events will prove that fear unfounded, but I can't and won't deny that the fear is genuine and plausible. I'm not part of the demographics most likely to be targeted by what's going on, and I realize that this fact gives me a detached view that others can ill-afford to take. My historian's sensibility warns against judging people who are in circumstances I can never understand perfectly. But I do believe the "don't normalize" argument at best will simply not work and at worst will help foster a defensive reaction in favor of Trump.
Some Trump opponents argue that we shouldn't "normalize his election." It's a losing argument and not likely to convince anyone of anything. In fact, it's likely to make some people defensive who can otherwise be brought to oppose Mr. Trump or at least some of his most egregious actions.
The intention behind the argument
Trump's campaign was based on an unprecedented appeal to racism, xenophobia, and violence. (Or "unprecedented" for the candidate of a major party since World War II.) A good number--perhaps small, but still too many for comfort--of his supporters identify openly with the "alt right" or other white nationalist creeds, and one of his "senior" advisors used to be an editor for an online magazine that gave a voice to some alt right groups. Further, it appears that Mr.Trump has either declined to disavow them, waited too long to disavow them, or has been too equivocal in disavowing them. (For a dissenting view, see Scott Alexander.)
There are other sins, too, and I haven't even touched on the in some ways more disturbing implications of Mr. Trump's presidency for foreign policy.
Those who say "don't normalize" the election are saying this is no ordinary transfer of power. They're pushing back against a tempting story that goes, "well, two people ran for election and one of them won, so let's all come together and support the new president, and better luck next time to the losers." The "don't normalize" people are saying that approach is insufficient. It doesn't represent the gravity of what has already happened and doesn't create a bulwark against what might happen. In a very real sense, that approach makes "normal" that which ought never be normal and until recently wasn't even openly sayable.
An unnecessary hurdle
But raising the "don't normalize" argument creates an unnecessary hurdle for Trump opponents. With the "don't normalize" argument, they now have to explain what normalization is, why it's bad, how not to normalize, and how any given action a "normalizer" undertakes actually constitutes normalization--all that before and in addition to criticizing anything of substance. And the what's, why's, and how's are more difficult than it might seem from a Trump opponent's perspective. For one thing, what does it mean as a practical matter to "normalize"? As Noah Millman has said,
If people who opposed Trump refuse to “normalize” his government, what does that mean? That they will, literally, refuse to recognize its authority — refuse to pay its taxes, resign from service in its military, and so forth? Surely not.I'll add that it's impossible NOT to normalize (for certain values of "normalize") without making some very difficult decisions. If you have a 401k or an investment account, are you prepared to disinvest from any stocks or bonds that have a stake in "normalizing" the new presidency--which is pretty much all of them? Are you prepared, as Millman says, to refuse to pay taxes, etc.? Do we start a civil war? If so, who do we kill? (For the record, I disavow killing or civil war. I'm pointing out that one reductio to which the "don't normalize" talk can go is to a call for violence. Again, that's not something I'm willing to endorse.) More from the same Millman article:
I think what people mean when they say that we can’t “normalize” Trump’s behavior is some some version of “we need to keep reminding people that this is not normal.” But the “we” and “people” in that sentence are doing all the work.Whoever says that Trump shouldn’t be “normalized” is implying that somebody — the press, perhaps? — is in a position to decide what is normal, and to inform everybody else of that fact. But that’s not how norms work, and neither the press nor anybody else is in a position either to grant or withhold recognition to the new government.
In fact, the word is a way of distracting from one of the crucial jobs at hand. Trump, for example, is on strong legal ground when he says that he is exempt from conflict of interest laws. But laws can be changed — and in this case, perhaps they should be. To achieve that requires making a case, not that what Trump is doing isn’t “normal,” but that it is a bad thing worth prohibiting by law. Saying “we mustn’t normalize this behavior” rather than “we need to stop this behavior” is really a way of saying that you don’t want to engage in politics, but would rather just signal to those who already agree with us just how appalled we are.
What is to be done?
I don't know the answer to that question. Perhaps because Trump hasn't even assumed office yet, "don't normalize the election" might be a more winnable or at least plausible argument because he hasn't had a chance to do much yet other than signal certain policies and criticize people's acting ability. Maybe when the time comes, we can follow Matt Yglesias's suggestion and focus on the actual policies and humdrum of politics. Or maybe we could do more than that (although we should probably do that). Take Rebecca Trotter's blog. She'd possibly disagree with my admonition against the "don't normalize" argument, but even if she does, she offers concrete things we can do in her series of "daily acts of resistance" posts and her ideas on "what resistance to Trump looks like." I'm don't read her as often as I should--and I'm not prepared to say I necessarily agree with her ideas for resistance--but she's offering something concrete.
Envoi
Maybe Trump is an authoritarian who may bring us closer to the coming next presidential tyranny. Maybe he'll turn out to be the weak-willed, thin-skinned, incompetent his actions so far suggest he is. A third possibility is that he's just a regular politician who'll both modify, and fit in to, the institutional norms and incentives that are the presidency.
I realize there is real fear out there. Perhaps events will prove that fear unfounded, but I can't and won't deny that the fear is genuine and plausible. I'm not part of the demographics most likely to be targeted by what's going on, and I realize that this fact gives me a detached view that others can ill-afford to take. My historian's sensibility warns against judging people who are in circumstances I can never understand perfectly. But I do believe the "don't normalize" argument at best will simply not work and at worst will help foster a defensive reaction in favor of Trump.
Wednesday, January 11, 2017
Reviving the forbidden analogy
[I originally posted this item over at Hitcoffee about a month ago.]
According to Godwin’s law and its corollaries, Hitler and Nazi analogies are almost always a bad idea. They are more likely to derail a conversation than add to it.
If you’re trying to convince someone of something, comparing them to Hitler and the Nazis is probably the wrong way to get them to listen to you. It also leaves room for one objection. If someone is so like the Nazis that the comparison is apt, they might not amendable to argument anyway. (Actually, I’m not so sure. I see some moral distance between the German who didn’t approve of but who acquiesced to Nazi rule and high-ranking leaders of the party. This might be offensive, but most citizens of the United States acquiesce to some pretty brutal policies who if asked would claim not to approve. Not saying that’s the same thing….which is one of the problems with Nazi analogies in the first place.)
The analogy is distracting. If someone is to be opposed because he is “a lot like Hitler,” then it shouldn’t be too hard to point out the ways he is objectionable without saying “and this is what the Nazis did, too.” If someone really wishes to single out an ethno-religious groups for “special treatment,” or if he endorses politically motivated violence, or if he threatens to revive something like the Palmer raids, then it shouldn’t be too hard to argue that that person is proposing something wrong. If it is hard, then your problem is different from mere analogizing.
Finally–and I’m not sure I’ve heard this objection raised before–the analogy can normalize Nazism. For the purposes of naming things as they are, of course, Nazis should be called Nazis. Neo-Nazis should also be called Nazis. The “alt right”….maybe call them Nazis, I guess, depending on who we’re talking about and what they advocate.
I’m not sure how far down the ladder it’s okay to go, though. If someone is in principle persuadable to your view, or if they supported the “unsupportable” for non-Nazi’ish reasons, then it’s possible overusing the word “Nazi” in describing that person might make less illegitimate a term that heretofore has been an automatic insult.
In a sense, overuse of the word grants Nazis “official opposition” status. If that’s how things are, then that’s how they are. But we shouldn’t overdetermine the result.
Please don’t misunderstand me. If someone comes to think the term “Nazi” is now “less illegitimate” than it was before, the fault lies primarily with that person. People sometimes choose evil, and if we make it easy for them to do so, we share some of the blame. But the principal responsibility lies with the chooser.
In two fairly recent posts Over There, I’ve seen something like that analogy used for our present situation.Before I discuss them, I’d like to point out that I am citing only the parts that speak to the issue of Nazi analogies. Each post makes more complex arguments and should not be judged solely by what I excerpt here. So read the whole thing(s).
The first post is Saul De Graw’s reflections on how bad the new presidential administration might be:
What surprised me slightly more was that no one, as far as I can tell, actually complained about Godwin’s law. The closest was one comment to Mike’s post, which complained that “[i]t seems like the point of this article was to stack the concepts of liberalism, smugness, and anti-Semitism on top of each other in so many combinations that it will seem like anyone who accuses liberals of smugness is anti-Semitic.”
A lot of things could explain the unwillingness to call out Godwin’s law. It is a liberal-leaning blog, after all. And for each OP, the main point wasn’t the Nazi analogy but some other thing. In Saul’s case, he forthrightly admits the dangers of “Godwin’s law” and in Mike’s case, as I’ve said, the analogy was only implicit. And maybe those posts just happen to show up on the right day/time so that no one chose to discuss the analogy’s aptness.
I’m not inclined to call Godwin’s law, either. Whatever differences I might have with Saul’s post, I have no standing whatsoever to tell him that he doesn’t really fear what he says he fears. I’d go even further and say his”…and most of the rest of the people will just put their heads down to save themselves and their families” is too charitable.It’s far from clear that the question was always saving oneself and one’s family. It might have been more like “saving oneself the inconvenience and opportunity cost” of raising even a token opposition.
For Mike’s post, a more charitable reading of his analogy is that he’s identifying a prior instance of fallacious reasoning and noting how in his opinion current commentary succumbs to similar reasoning. I’m not sure I agree completely–and I see more disanalogy than analogy–but I can’t say he’s wholly wrong, either.
In fact, looking to myself, the chance that the analogy might have some teeth haunts me in our present situation. My insistence on “understanding the voters, my own “gut” preference for the president-elect, and my perhaps too cheerful optimism that (to use what seems to be our newest cliche) “our institutions can survive the stress test”–these all suggest to me something similar to the German citizen who silently disagreed with the Nazis’ racial policies or who complacently believed Hitler might not be so bad or that his ministers and the institutions of civil society could control him.
The dangerous thing is that I could probably get away with complacency. I’m not a member of the demographics most likely to be targeted, although some of my loved ones are. And Saul said, who’s targeted and who’s not targeted can change, sometimes very quickly.
I really want to agree with Scott Alexander. He has written that as bad as the president-elect is likely to be, he’s not the white nationalist wolf some people are crying. And on paper, Mr. Alexander is right. As far as I can tell, the last president who indulged in overt racism and white nationalism was Woodrow Wilson, and the next president ain’t no Wilson. That’s probably both a good thing and a bad thing. But I also fear the new guy is as much of a wolf as he can be.
More to the point, I do realize that the way things happen in the US are different from how they happen in Europe. Not “exceptional,” just different. Our persecutions and oppressions tend to be more decentralized, though no more benign for that. And I must keep things in historical perspective. Maybe a few months from now I’ll find the new president is just a regular politician with a populist streak, of the sort we’ve had before and have survived.
Even flirting with the Hitler analogy by implication compares those of my family, friends, or readers who voted for the president-elect to Germans who voted for national socialism in the 1930s. I ask only that they realize I’m directing this analogy to myself and my own complacency. I disagree strongly with their decision, but I refuse to direct the analogy to them. As an analogy, it works best for removing the beams in the eye of those who use it. Motes in others’ eyes require a more precise instrument.
The forbidden analogy.
According to Godwin’s law and its corollaries, Hitler and Nazi analogies are almost always a bad idea. They are more likely to derail a conversation than add to it.
If you’re trying to convince someone of something, comparing them to Hitler and the Nazis is probably the wrong way to get them to listen to you. It also leaves room for one objection. If someone is so like the Nazis that the comparison is apt, they might not amendable to argument anyway. (Actually, I’m not so sure. I see some moral distance between the German who didn’t approve of but who acquiesced to Nazi rule and high-ranking leaders of the party. This might be offensive, but most citizens of the United States acquiesce to some pretty brutal policies who if asked would claim not to approve. Not saying that’s the same thing….which is one of the problems with Nazi analogies in the first place.)
The analogy is distracting. If someone is to be opposed because he is “a lot like Hitler,” then it shouldn’t be too hard to point out the ways he is objectionable without saying “and this is what the Nazis did, too.” If someone really wishes to single out an ethno-religious groups for “special treatment,” or if he endorses politically motivated violence, or if he threatens to revive something like the Palmer raids, then it shouldn’t be too hard to argue that that person is proposing something wrong. If it is hard, then your problem is different from mere analogizing.
Finally–and I’m not sure I’ve heard this objection raised before–the analogy can normalize Nazism. For the purposes of naming things as they are, of course, Nazis should be called Nazis. Neo-Nazis should also be called Nazis. The “alt right”….maybe call them Nazis, I guess, depending on who we’re talking about and what they advocate.
I’m not sure how far down the ladder it’s okay to go, though. If someone is in principle persuadable to your view, or if they supported the “unsupportable” for non-Nazi’ish reasons, then it’s possible overusing the word “Nazi” in describing that person might make less illegitimate a term that heretofore has been an automatic insult.
In a sense, overuse of the word grants Nazis “official opposition” status. If that’s how things are, then that’s how they are. But we shouldn’t overdetermine the result.
Please don’t misunderstand me. If someone comes to think the term “Nazi” is now “less illegitimate” than it was before, the fault lies primarily with that person. People sometimes choose evil, and if we make it easy for them to do so, we share some of the blame. But the principal responsibility lies with the chooser.
The analogy revived.
In two fairly recent posts Over There, I’ve seen something like that analogy used for our present situation.Before I discuss them, I’d like to point out that I am citing only the parts that speak to the issue of Nazi analogies. Each post makes more complex arguments and should not be judged solely by what I excerpt here. So read the whole thing(s).
The first post is Saul De Graw’s reflections on how bad the new presidential administration might be:
We also like to think that our laws and Constitution will protect us from the worse from happening but laws and Constitution are only as strong as the people themselves. A friend of mine posted another story on Facebook. The author of the post’s grandmother was a Jewish elementary school student in Hitler’s Germany. She needed surgery in 1932 and 1933. In 1932, all of the girl’s classmates and teachers came to visit her in the hospital. In 1933, no one did.
This story might seem hyperbolic (and it does raise Godwin’s Law) but it demonstrates that the norms of bigotry can change rapidly and seemingly overnight. Maybe the girl’s classmates and teachers did not become more anti-Semitic, but they knew it would be a serious social cost and possibly a physical cost to visit their Jewish classmate in the hospital. Most people are go along and get along types. You don’t need a nation of willing executioners. You just need enough people willing to commit acts of violence with the consent of government, and most of the rest of the people will just put their heads down to save themselves and their families.The second is Mike Schilling’s takedown of the argument that liberals’ alleged smugness played a role in the president-elect’s victory. (In my opinion, the Nazi analogy lurks in the background, although Mike himself makes no explicit reference to it and the person he’s referring to is a post-World War II “scholar.”):
In case you’re not familiar with the work of Kevin Macdonald, let me summarize. In analyzing the recurrence of anti-Semitism through history, he found the usual explanations wanting, and hit upon one that, while not new, had been oddly absent from almost all recent academic discussions: they deserve it. Jews really are awful, he observed: clannish, avaricious, and amoral, with disdain for societal norms and non-Jews in general that makes them a cancer on any society foolish enough to admit them. Anti-semitism is an entirely natural response, in effect the immune system working to fight an infection.
Much of the reaction to the recent election has included a similar insight, which, much like Dr. Macdonald’s, is moving beyond the area that once hosted it. [The president-elect’s] popularity among voters is explained by the fact that liberals are smug. Of course voters dislikes liberals: who wouldn’t? They’re whiny losers, overeducated but lacking any sense, haters of patriotism, religion, and everything genuinely American, nanny-staters, Godless socialists, baby-killers, special snowflakes who need safe spaces. And worst of all, smug. No wonder their political fortunes are slipping; no one can stand them. (Even worse for fans of Dr. Macdonald, liberals are often… Well, you know.)What surprised me wasn’t so much that the analogy was used (or in Mike’s case, implied). That’s to be expected on a liberal-leaning blog in which almost all authors and contributors opposed the president-elect and believed his campaign represented an unacceptably racist, xenophobic, or authoritarian turn in US politics.
What surprised me slightly more was that no one, as far as I can tell, actually complained about Godwin’s law. The closest was one comment to Mike’s post, which complained that “[i]t seems like the point of this article was to stack the concepts of liberalism, smugness, and anti-Semitism on top of each other in so many combinations that it will seem like anyone who accuses liberals of smugness is anti-Semitic.”
A lot of things could explain the unwillingness to call out Godwin’s law. It is a liberal-leaning blog, after all. And for each OP, the main point wasn’t the Nazi analogy but some other thing. In Saul’s case, he forthrightly admits the dangers of “Godwin’s law” and in Mike’s case, as I’ve said, the analogy was only implicit. And maybe those posts just happen to show up on the right day/time so that no one chose to discuss the analogy’s aptness.
Directing the analogy inward.
I’m not inclined to call Godwin’s law, either. Whatever differences I might have with Saul’s post, I have no standing whatsoever to tell him that he doesn’t really fear what he says he fears. I’d go even further and say his”…and most of the rest of the people will just put their heads down to save themselves and their families” is too charitable.It’s far from clear that the question was always saving oneself and one’s family. It might have been more like “saving oneself the inconvenience and opportunity cost” of raising even a token opposition.
For Mike’s post, a more charitable reading of his analogy is that he’s identifying a prior instance of fallacious reasoning and noting how in his opinion current commentary succumbs to similar reasoning. I’m not sure I agree completely–and I see more disanalogy than analogy–but I can’t say he’s wholly wrong, either.
In fact, looking to myself, the chance that the analogy might have some teeth haunts me in our present situation. My insistence on “understanding the voters, my own “gut” preference for the president-elect, and my perhaps too cheerful optimism that (to use what seems to be our newest cliche) “our institutions can survive the stress test”–these all suggest to me something similar to the German citizen who silently disagreed with the Nazis’ racial policies or who complacently believed Hitler might not be so bad or that his ministers and the institutions of civil society could control him.
The dangerous thing is that I could probably get away with complacency. I’m not a member of the demographics most likely to be targeted, although some of my loved ones are. And Saul said, who’s targeted and who’s not targeted can change, sometimes very quickly.
I really want to agree with Scott Alexander. He has written that as bad as the president-elect is likely to be, he’s not the white nationalist wolf some people are crying. And on paper, Mr. Alexander is right. As far as I can tell, the last president who indulged in overt racism and white nationalism was Woodrow Wilson, and the next president ain’t no Wilson. That’s probably both a good thing and a bad thing. But I also fear the new guy is as much of a wolf as he can be.
More to the point, I do realize that the way things happen in the US are different from how they happen in Europe. Not “exceptional,” just different. Our persecutions and oppressions tend to be more decentralized, though no more benign for that. And I must keep things in historical perspective. Maybe a few months from now I’ll find the new president is just a regular politician with a populist streak, of the sort we’ve had before and have survived.
Conclusion.
Even flirting with the Hitler analogy by implication compares those of my family, friends, or readers who voted for the president-elect to Germans who voted for national socialism in the 1930s. I ask only that they realize I’m directing this analogy to myself and my own complacency. I disagree strongly with their decision, but I refuse to direct the analogy to them. As an analogy, it works best for removing the beams in the eye of those who use it. Motes in others’ eyes require a more precise instrument.
Saturday, January 7, 2017
Trump and defensiveness
(Note: this is a re-post of something I wrote a couple months ago at Hitcoffee.)
I don’t like Donald Trump. I hope he’ll be merely a bad president and not a disastrous one. I don’t like Trumpism, either. I hope (but am not optimistic) the anecdotes of racially and sexist motivated violence are either exaggerated, reported only because they’re topical, or at least don’t represent a new trend. The night of the election I was depressed and worried. You might not believe it, but I didn’t sleep at all. Not a wink. I just lay awake in bed thinking about the future.
And yet, when people in my life criticize Trump or his supporters, I get very defensive for some reason. By “people in my life” I mean family members, close friends, coworkers, and people on the blogosphere. Even my belief that we do indeed need to understand our opponents represents a certain defensiveness because my go-to (with some past exceptions) is usually to understand Trump supporters or non-liberals in general and not to understand the liberals who oppose Trump.
Perhaps some of this has to do with “flippism,” an idea I got from Jaybird, a commenter Over There. In relevant part,
Some of this defensiveness and “gut support” is a luxury. I’m not among the demographics most likely to be hurt by Trumpism if the worst (or even just the “moderately bad”) predictions about what it means come true. Some of it is probably also due to what my co-blogger Oscar recently described as the “-ism-lite,” which is the type of racism (and other ism’s) that are not quite as nefarious or bad as the more obvious or open kinds, but are still wrong and withal easy for its practitioners to overlook. As he puts, it instead of rejecting out of hand, “I have to parse it, process it, and then I recognize it and decide it’s not OK.”
I realize that in this post, other than noting that I do get defensive, I haven’t really explained the defensiveness or even the types of situations that elicit that defensiveness. I’m simply noting that it’s there and I’m not sure what to do with it.
I don’t like Donald Trump. I hope he’ll be merely a bad president and not a disastrous one. I don’t like Trumpism, either. I hope (but am not optimistic) the anecdotes of racially and sexist motivated violence are either exaggerated, reported only because they’re topical, or at least don’t represent a new trend. The night of the election I was depressed and worried. You might not believe it, but I didn’t sleep at all. Not a wink. I just lay awake in bed thinking about the future.
And yet, when people in my life criticize Trump or his supporters, I get very defensive for some reason. By “people in my life” I mean family members, close friends, coworkers, and people on the blogosphere. Even my belief that we do indeed need to understand our opponents represents a certain defensiveness because my go-to (with some past exceptions) is usually to understand Trump supporters or non-liberals in general and not to understand the liberals who oppose Trump.
Perhaps some of this has to do with “flippism,” an idea I got from Jaybird, a commenter Over There. In relevant part,
It’s the basic idea that if you don’t know which of two choices are before you, you should flip a coin. Not because you should do what the coin says, mind, but because the moment the coin is in the air, you’re a lot more likely to say “OH I HOPE IT’S HEADS” at which point you’ll know which choice you actually prefer in your gut.As upset as I was about Trump’s victory, I can’t deny that somewhere in my gut I wanted him to win, if not the presidency, then at least the GOP nomination, and not in the way that some liberals wanted him to win the nomination in order to ensure a Democratic victory. In the voting booth, even though I voted for Clinton, part of me wanted to vote for Trump just to be contrarian. In Sangamon that vote wouldn’t have affected the outcome, but it’s still something I might have done.
Then you just have to figure out how much weight to give your gut.
I bring that up because hypocrisy can work that way for people who are on the fence. Let’s say that you’re torn on a particular policy. There’s this way, there’s that way… you don’t know which is the best one… then you encounter a hypocritical politician. Are you inclined to snort and reach conclusions about all those people? Are you inclined to get defensive and start defending the guy even before you read a single attack? Well, now you know what your gut thinks.
Some of this defensiveness and “gut support” is a luxury. I’m not among the demographics most likely to be hurt by Trumpism if the worst (or even just the “moderately bad”) predictions about what it means come true. Some of it is probably also due to what my co-blogger Oscar recently described as the “-ism-lite,” which is the type of racism (and other ism’s) that are not quite as nefarious or bad as the more obvious or open kinds, but are still wrong and withal easy for its practitioners to overlook. As he puts, it instead of rejecting out of hand, “I have to parse it, process it, and then I recognize it and decide it’s not OK.”
I realize that in this post, other than noting that I do get defensive, I haven’t really explained the defensiveness or even the types of situations that elicit that defensiveness. I’m simply noting that it’s there and I’m not sure what to do with it.
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