You have all these “norms.” And you think they’ll save you.
Why Biden and Harris
should (maybe) skip Trump’s inauguration. And why they won’t.
Nov 12, 2024
One of my reactions to the election has been the belief
that I should go into “question everything” mode.
Not literally. There are things I
won’t reevaluate—liberal democracy, the rule of law, the cardinal virtues. But
you get what I’m saying.
I expect this to be an uncomfortable
process. I do not expect always to discover tidy answers. But
we can choose to view last week as either a random catastrophe or a teachable
moment. And I’m nothing if not teachable.
So let’s have an uncomfortable
conversation about “norms.”
1. A Simple Question
Should President Joe Biden attend
Donald Trump’s inauguration?
My gut reaction is, “Yes. Obviously.”
Norms are important. Prior to January
2021, presidents traditionally attended the handoff ceremony to their
successors. This act of graciousness sent an important signal of unity to the
country. It told Americans, If the men who fought this election view
one another as friends and patriots, then you should view them—and your
neighbors—the same way.
This norm was also a message that
whatever might have been said in the heat of the campaign, everyone believed
that the incoming president was operating within the American mainstream. No
one was worried that the new guy might be Mussolini. The presence of the
outgoing president reassured the country that, Don’t worry, folks.
We’re still playing between the 40 yard lines.
Or, as President Biden put it last
Thursday, “You can’t love your country only when you win” and “you can’t love
your neighbor only when you agree.”
I love this stuff. Tradition!
Civility! Norms! But I’m here to question stuff I love.
On January 20, 2025, we will swear in
a convicted felon. A man who attempted a violent overthrow of the government.
Who has ushered political violence back into the American mainstream. Who
promised that he would not accept the results of last week’s
election unless he won. Who previously said that on January 20, 2025, he would
like to be a dictator.
And so I would ask—to paraphrase Anton
Chigurh: If the norms we followed brought us to this, of what use
were those norms?
I first asked this question last
Thursday in a Secret pod with
Sarah. Her response was: Dude. When you’re using the words of a
fictional sociopathic assassin as part of your Socratic dialogue, something has
gone very wrong.1
And fair enough. But since this is an
exercise in Just Asking Questions, indulge me.
So let’s examine norms through a
utilitarian lens.
Maybe the answer is that Biden and
Harris should attend Trump’s inauguration because forgoing it would hurt
Democrats in some way, reducing the party’s political capital and making it
harder for it to effectively oppose Trump.
But is that true? Trump did not attend
Biden’s inauguration and he very clearly never paid a price for that action. If
you recall, Trump used Biden’s inauguration to hijack the spotlight with his
will-he/won’t-he act and give a speech in which he soft-launched his 2024
campaign.
In fact, it seems to me that when
Trump refused to attend Biden’s inauguration, he helped himself
and the Republican party a great deal.
Further, I would argue that if
Trump had attended Biden’s inauguration, it would have aided
Biden by lending him legitimacy and tamping down Republican claims of the
election having been stolen. Clearly, Trump understood this. He grasped that if
he had gone to Biden’s inauguration, it would have helped Biden and hurt Trump.2
Let’s flip the telescope around: Would
the presence of Biden and Harris at Trump’s inauguration help Trump? I think it
would. At least in a small way.
It would signal to Americans that
Trump is now normal. That his felony convictions, outstanding criminal charges,
threats of violence, and eagerness to be a dictator are, ackshually,
within the norms and traditions of the established political order. It would
signal that nothing Trump has done, or proposes to do, is so evil as to merit a
deviation from something as insubstantial as (an unrequited) “tradition.”
And the logical extension of that
message is to make opposition to Trump seem less rational.
After all, if Trump is really
attempting to shred the Constitution, and Democrats are trying to raise the
alarm, a rational voter might ask, “If this is all so beyond the pale, why were
you sitting politely at the guy’s inauguration last week?”
If you take a more atavistic view,
Biden and Harris’s presence at Trump’s inauguration could be seen by the public
as an act of submission. A statement that the forces of liberalism are so
impotent that they cannot even countenance rudeness in
defiance of fascism.
And as we have seen, the American
people have showed that they very much prefer the strong horse. So this image
of submission might be of political value to Trump.
In the end—if we’re going to be
totally cold-blooded about it—I can’t understand why Biden (or Harris) would
attend.
Trump blew up this norm four years ago
and turning the cheek by showing up to his inauguration would
(a) not restore the norm; (b) not help Democratic opposition to Trump; and (c)
probably help Trump’s political standing.
Why would Biden and/or Harris do that?
Are they suckers and losers?
You would think that politicians who
had just been crushed by the philosophy of transactionalism would be more
respectful of its power as a modus operandi.
I certainly am.
And yet . . . when I say that out
loud?
I can’t help feeling like this guy . .
.
Ultimately, the best answer I can
think of on this question isn’t utilitarian but moral. Some variation of: Because
we believe in the importance of these norms and if we lower ourselves to
Trump’s standard then we’re no better than he is and yadda yadda yadda.
Maybe that’s true? I know that I want it
to be true. And I know that there are standards we shouldn’t be willing to
breach: No breaking the law, for instance.
But the standard of politeness? Last
week Ken White wrote:
[N]o civility code or norm of
discourse is worth being a dupe. Trump and his adherents absolutely don’t
respect or support your right to oppose him. They have contempt for your
disagreement. They despise your vote. They don’t think it’s legitimate. The people
who voted for him, at a minimum, don’t see that as a deal-breaker. So Trump
voters, to the extent they fault you for judging them, have a double standard
you need not respect. Part of the way Trumpists win is when you announce “ah
well, voting for Trumpists is just a normal difference of opinion, we all share
the same basic American values,” while the Trumpists are saying “everyone who
disagrees with us is cuck scum, they’re the enemy within.” Stop that nonsense.
I find it hard to argue with this
conclusion and at the end of the day I cannot think of a compelling reason for
why Biden should attend Trump’s inauguration. I know that Biden will do it,
because he’s a fundamentally decent man. But his act of civility and adherence
to this old, shattered norm will not create normalcy.
It will only conjure a phantasm of
normality. For some people, this illusion will be comforting. But for others,
it will be useful.
2. New Rules
This discussion is all academic—Biden
and Harris will be at the inauguration. They will be publicly gracious. They
will try to reassure the country because, at heart, they believe in
America. And God bless them for it.
So let’s pivot to figuring out a
rubric for evaluating which norms we should uphold and which we should
reconsider.
Kindness. It
always starts here. We should default to kindness in all things. There is no
moral justification for cruelty.
I know what you’re thinking! JVL,
my dude, last week you said that we should let Trump do his worst in order to
teach people a lesson about making beds and whatnot.
Yes. But the aim of this is not
cruelty. It’s persuasion.3
Being mean for no reason other than
retribution? Or making yourself feel better? We shouldn’t do that.4
Honesty. One
sentiment I’ve seen recently is that people on the anti-Trump side ought to get
comfortable with lying, because that’s what the sheeple respond to.
I’m not Pollyanna. It’s obvious that
the majority of people do not mind being lied to and many of them actively
prefer lies to truth.
But we shouldn’t lie. Nothing good can
be built on lies. Lies are the brick-and-mortar of cruelty and death. If you
want to build good structures, truth is the only structurally sound material.
Efficacy. This
where we have to make judgments as we ask the question, “Does upholding this
norm help, or hurt, the cause of liberalism?”
In the case of Biden showing up to the
inauguration I think the balance pretty clearly tips toward “hurts liberalism,”
but I understand that different people might come to the opposite conclusion.
But there are cases where it’s a
pretty clean decision. For instance: The White House Correspondents’
Association Dinner. Or talking-head TV shows.
Situations where we engage in kabuki
normality just because that’s how existing norms have always done it? I don’t
see any upside for liberalism in such playacting.
For me, the toughest calculation is
probably in upholding norms about governing that are now in tension with
transactionalism.
One of the questions Sarah asked me
yesterday was: Should Democrats try to stop Trump if he attempts to repeal the
ACA without having any alternative plan to replace it?5
My impulse for good governing said,
“Yes, Democrats should try to stop the repeal in such a situation.”
But my newfound respect for
transactionalism pushes in the opposite direction. It seems to me that it would
be important to understand whom ACA repeal would primarily hurt.
If it primarily hurt Democratic
voters, then yes, Democrats should try to stop the repeal.
But if it primarily hurt Republican
voters? Then we’re in the realm of persuasion. The best possible way to reach
those voters isn’t to stop the Trump administration from hurting them. It’s to
allow them to experience the fruits of Trumpism so that, hopefully, they make
different choices in the next election.
A lot of liberal politics over the
last decade presupposed that governing well would create political support. A
good example of this theory was that by passing the CHIPS Act (which created a
boom in blue-collar manufacturing jobs) or the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act
(which shoveled real-world benefits to rural communities in red states),
liberalism could make inroads with the kinds of rural, white, working-class
voters who were increasingly turning to Trumpism.
I’m not sure this view is operational
at the moment.
Instead, it may be that the
pro-democracy coalition needs to think more transactionally. Like Trump.
But maybe not? Like I said, I’m
working through all of this. I hope you’ll discuss it—and your thoughts about
preserving norms—in the comments.
A few days later JD Vance employed the
same quote, only he used it in such a way as to question the precepts
of liberal democracy itself.
Which kind of proves Sarah’s point.
It’s possible that this is comparing
apples and oranges: The the general public would punish Democrats for doing
things it is not willing to punish Trump for doing. We’ve seen a lot of that in
the last few years.
I don’t know how to deal with that
possibility except to acknowledge it.
My point here is that if people were
not persuaded by people like us warning them about the consequences of
Trumpism, then it is possible that the only thing which can persuade them is
experiencing the consequences of Trumpism.
Though everyone feels
the impulse at times—Even especially me. It’s understandable. And
we won’t always be our best selves. But we shouldn’t normalize cruelty. That’s
bad.
For the purposes of this discussion,
we’re going to pretend that (a) it’s a straight repeal and (b) that Trump is
doing it through the normal legislative process and not budget reconciliation.
