As the GOP descends ever deeper into its counter-factual sinkhole – abetting the “stolen election” lie, purging a truth-teller from party leadership, pledging blind fealty to their liar-in-chief, plotting to destroy democracy in ’24, and behaving as if Jan. 6 was no big deal – the wise writings of Hannah Arendt spring to mind.
Arendt, a scholar best known for parsing totalitarianism, famously coined the phrase the banality of evil while covering the Adolf Eichmann trial. If only she were with us now, to opine on the Republicans’ neo-fascist retreat from factual reality. But we need not be disappointed, because in truth she said it all 70 years ago:
“Society is always prone to accept a person offhand for what he pretends to be, so that a crackpot posing as a genius always has a certain chance to be believed. In modern society, with its characteristic lack of discerning judgment, this tendency is strengthened, so that someone who not only holds opinions but also presents them in a tone of unshakable conviction will not so easily forfeit his prestige, no matter how many times he has been demonstrably wrong.”
The shrewdest faux geniuses build their movements by successfully trumpeting big lies to credulous citizens who yearn to be free of thinking for themselves. Arendt wrote:
“Their propaganda is marked by its extreme contempt for facts as such, for in their opinion ‘fact’ depends entirely on the power of the man who can fabricate it…If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything any longer…And a people that no longer can believe anything cannot make up its mind. It is deprived not only of its capacity to act but also of its capacity to think and to judge. And with such a people you can then do what you please…
“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience), and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist.”
And aspiring despots cannot succeed without flunkies who do their bidding – people like Kevin McCarthy and his sizeable coterie of cowards. Arendt understood that as well:
“Totalitarians invariably replace all first-rate talents…with crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty…Total loyalty is possible only when fidelity is emptied of all concrete content.”
And with his lockstep followers on board, the so-called strong man plots his rise – with flagrant lies that are, in Arendt’s words, “frank” and “mendacious.” She wrote:
“Would-be totalitarian rulers usually start by boasting of their past crimes and carefully outlining their future ones.”
Bingo! Trump is still trying to steal the 2020 election – while openly planning, with his grassroots toadies, to rig state election rules for a potential steal in 2024. Arendt knew Trump’s game, even if she and nobody else in her generation could’ve possibly imagined that an American political party would sell its soul to a loser who went broke running casinos.
Fortunately, for what it’s worth (and, hopefully, it will prove worthy), a coalition of more than 150 prominent Republicans and conservatives announced this week that they’re fed up with the cultish GOP, which they called “rotten to its core.” They want to “reimagine a party dedicated to our founding ideals. We seek the preservation and betterment of our democratic republic…We oppose the employment of fear-mongering, conspiracism, and falsehoods and instead support evidence-based policymaking and honest discourse.”
And if the party can’t be redeemed, they want to “hasten the creation” of an “alternative.” That’s vague at best, but at least there’s still a spark of democratic life in the Republican corpse. Their urgent mission – certainly Liz Cheney’s stated mission – is to dig in for the long haul and liberate the party base from the tyranny of lies and the false comforts of mindless obedience.
Because, as Hannah Arendt once said, “No one has the right to obey.”