I begin with a story published by CBS News (5 Oct) to end with a larger message about language in politics.
In 2022, Jay Jones, current Democratic candidate for Virginia’s attorney general wrote that “if he were presented with a hypothetical situation in which he had only two bullets and was faced with the choice of shooting [then-Republican Speaker of the House Todd] Gilbert, former Nazi leader Adolf Hitler or former Cambodia dictator Pol Pot, he'd shoot Gilbert ‘every time.’” He added, “‘Gilbert gets two bullets to the head,’ Jones wrote. ‘Spoiler: put Gilbert in the crew with the two worst people you know and he receives both bullets every time’”
When The National Review disclosed his words, Jones apologized. “‘I want to issue my deepest apology to Speaker Gilbert and his family. Reading back those words made me sick to my stomach. I am embarrassed, ashamed, and sorry… I have reached out to Speaker Gilbert to apologize directly to him, his wife Jennifer, and their children. I cannot take back what I said; I can only take full accountability and offer my sincere apology,’ Jones said.”
“Rep. Abigail Spanberger, Virginia's Democratic gubernatorial nominee, swiftly condemned Jones's comments. [¶] Spanberger's Republican opponent, Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, also denounced the remarks. [¶] “‘This is horrible to read and should be wholly disqualifying of someone running for an office that protects the people of Virginia,’ Earle-Sears said in a statement. ‘Jay Jones’ horrific comments are a symptom of the entire Democratic Party, and his running mate, Abigail Spanberger, needs to call on him to drop out.’”
In political campaigns, such stories have an importance lacking in daily life. Everyone has a past of words and deeds which, if made known, would be embarrassing. With the availability of the internet to all, indiscretions, especially at a youthful age, are commonplace. But Jones was no youth in 2022, when he wrote these words at age 33. He had served two terms in the House of Delegates, from 2018 to 2021; he left it to run for attorney general in 2021 and lost.
In this context, his apology now, 3 years later, at best mixes a teaspoon of personal sincerity with a gallon of political necessity. Were I his opponent, I would, unlike Earle-Sears, ask Jones three questions. One, why, as an adult and an elected official, did you not recognize the ugliness of these violent words and restrain yourself from publishing them? Two, what does your failed judgment then say about your judgment now? Three, why did it take you 3 years to apologize for them? These questions would do more to discredit Jones than Earle-Sears’s comments.
Given no or inadequate answers from Jones, Earle-Sears would be justified in claiming that they are seriously discrediting, if not, as he says they are, disqualifying. Then Earle-Sears goes way too far when he alleges that Jones’s remarks are “a symptom of the entire Democratic Party.” The remark is, of course, a smear based on the fallacy that one person represents an entire group. It thus enables him to drag in the Democratic candidate for governor. But both are separately elected officials, and neither is responsible for the other. Earle-Sears’s illogic would appall him if applied to his side. He would have to grant that Dylann Roof, white supremacist, racist, and killer of nine black people praying in a Charleston church is symptomatic of all Lutherans or, enlarging the group, all Protestants or all Christians, and, assuming his political inclination, all Republicans. Earle-Sears’s abuse of logic and his resort to smear suggests biased judgment and partisan views, neither of which credit or qualify Earle-Sears for attorney general. Trump has endorsed this candidate, whose political tactics resemble his own.
Trump is the master of fallacious logic, pejorative labels, and hyperbole in executive orders justifying illegal or unconstitutional action by which he talks the country into trouble. If a city has crime—of course, the city is a “blue” one with a Democratic-leaning citizenry, a Democratic mayor, and a low and dropping crime rate—, then he labels it a “war zone” requiring national guard or active military troops to combat disorder by opposition from the “enemy within.” His words mean that Democrats are not members of an opposition political party; they are enemies of the state to be dealt with accordingly. Recent violence in Chicago is one example: agents from an alphabet soup of federal agencies—CBP, FBI, ATF, and ICE—conducted a nighttime raid on an apartment house, rousted ill-clad or naked residents, cuffed adults and zip-tied children without regard to status, and held them for hours in the street or in vans while they ransacked their apartments. Recent violence in Portland is another example: DHS agents not only pushed peaceful protesters away from an agency facility and tore down an anti-ICE banner hanging from a private building across the street, but also drove them for several blocks with tear gas, flash-bang grenades, and pepper balls. Yet, as everyone has noted, DHS claims that every encounter begins with citizens attacking agents—most improbable claims, especially since the agents are fully armed for combat and initiate the action.
Illogic, labeling, and hyperbole have led to dangerous international actions. Motivated by his dislike of Venezuelan President Maduro, Trump has ordered murderous attacks on Venezuelan boats in the Caribbean on the pretext that the occupants were gang members and drug smugglers intending to attack the United States about 1500 miles away. Trump’s administration has offered no evidence supporting this claim; victims of these unprovoked attacks likely were fishermen.
An increasing danger closer to home is Trump’s use of “ insurrection” or “rebellion” to characterize protests, small or large, to justify his deployment of armed troops to suppress them. Because Trump tailors his use of these terms to serve his political interests, he does not apply either of them to the 6 January 2021 attack on Congress. It is inevitable that, if military violence and civilian casualties suppress legitimate protests, the Supreme Court will be called upon to make legal decisions weighing the conflicting meanings of these terms, Trump’s and those in the First Amendment which protect protests: freedom of speech, the right to peaceably assemble, and the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances. SCOTUS is unlikely to uphold the Constitution. It is responsive to Trump’s resentment that constitutional provisions limit his ego-enhancing, expansive view of his presidential powers. Its “great deference” to Trump, is one thing; its obsequiousness, without regard to the consequences of his actions, for the public good or for democracy, is another. The Constitution’s words can get us out of trouble, if SCOTUS and Trump do not choose, at some point, simply to obfuscate or ignore them. But, at present, they are a clear and present danger to all. As a wit said, things look darkest just before they go totally black. He gave no assurance of light thereafter.
Trump’s fact-free, malleable words get us into trouble. His characterizations of major cities in blue states as riot-torn, burning down, or ruined defy the facts on the ground. One judge has noted that his claims bear no relationship to reality and, for that reason, refused to allow any federalized national guard troops into Portland. But her opinion addresses only the legal, political, and military implications of Trump’s speech. It only hints at the psychological underpinnings of his speech. His repeated use of hyperbolic and inflammatory language detached from reality reflects at least episodic mental derangement; Trump is no longer a consistently rational actor. I guess that his staff is doing as much as it can (as Biden’s staff did) to conceal his deteriorating condition reflected in reckless language and erratic conduct.
In any other administration, the Cabinet would have suspended a president in Trump’s condition under the 25th Amendment. But a Cabinet of Trump toadies will act out their servility throughout his term in office. With his increasing use of military troops, even the promise—I think that it will be broken—of elections in 2026 and 2028 provides little assurance of correction, much less relief. The only recourse of those wishing to preserve democracy is to continue to protest peacefully and use reality-based words, written or spoken, to support that cause.
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