The Republican Party has turned a Soviet-era strategy into a modern Amorality Play about the former President of the United States. They have given up trying to claim that ex-President Trump is innocent of charges of incitement to insurrection or to claims of covering up a bribe as a campaign expense. Instead they have chosen to highlight other allegations that seem to them more worthy of investigation.
The “Amorality Play” is based on the premise that any offense can be excused by pointing out someone else’s equally abhorrent offense. This play is an adaptation of the Soviet-era “Whataboutism” I mentioned in a previous blog about scapegoating.The Soviets would excuse any aggressions or human rights violations by pointing out America’s crimes in Vietnam or in the racist south. In using these talking points in their news media they distracted the international focus on their offenses and never dealt with the morality of their own foreign or domestic policies. In the 1960’s this ploy seemed cynical and without any moral foundation. Where was their defense of their own offenses of invasion of Afghanistan and incarcerating political opposition leaders?
Rather than exposing the amoral premise of “whataboutism” in the 1960’s and 70’s, American politicians adopted the same strategy to excuse their own political and moral indiscretions. Which brings us to the House Judiciary Committee, which is now investigating the Department of Justice and the prosecution record of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg in order to distract from the accusations against the beleaguered former President. “Whatabout?” Act V. (Readers are invited to propose their own Acts I- IV).
The Republican Party wastes little time arguing for the innocence of President Trump, but instead takes the opportunity to attack his enemies, reasoning we will forget the original accusations which have grown too numerous to describe in one sentence. Anyway, every crime deserves its own sentence. May each sentence be justified by the crime it punishes.
Returning to the scene of a legion of crimes, we can see a wide, encircling noose beginning to close around ex-President Trump. The noose starts with technical tax-related offenses that pertain only to his real estate business, but it begins to close around a crime of personal accountability–campaign finance fraud, then begins to tighten around election interferences in Georgia (for which others may take the fall), then it tightens more securely around the theft of classified documents, and finally closes around the broad, but most encompassing rope of incitement of insurrection.
This noose promises to close more tightly during the 2024 Presidential Election Campaign to the extent that hardly a day will pass that one of these crimes won’t weave into the daily news cycle. Even if the convictions are slow to evolve, the noose of allegations will finally enclose the ex-President, making his campaign unsustainable. He is a doomed candidate whether he spends a day in jail or not.
While Fox News may try to keep spinning stories of “whataboutism,” its credibility has already begun the relentless swirl into the toilet. The day of reckoning for the Media Giant is coming in the next several months of the Dominion Defamation 1.6 Billion lawsuit. The outcome remains out of the reach of a LasVegas bet, but it is not a good look for Fox and its “fair and balanced” public image. No doubt some media outlets will spin this story until TV viewers’ heads twist in confusion, but the lawsuit will enlighten many independent voters enough to get them to watch PBS or independent networks in desperate need of a fresh perspective.
I offer this forecast as a way to alert followers and candidates for office in 2024. The curtain is coming down on the Amorality Play from the sheer weight of bad media. The day of reckoning for spinners and domestic propagandists is upon us. It will not come in a moment in time, but roll in like the tide.
Or, more appropriately, close like a slow-motion noose in a gruesome frontier-style hanging. Choose your metaphor, a new play is opening on the American political stage. As the curtain rises, some heads will totter, or perhaps roll into obscurity.