What happened at the Capitol yesterday was nothing short of a national disgrace. The storming of the legislative building of the United States of America – the beacon of freedom and liberty for all of humanity – irreparably dishonored the nation, and represented a display of the highest form of treachery. This behavior, wholly and entirely unacceptable in any free nation, was the culmination of a long and dangerous trend in American political life, on both sides of the isle: the wholesale disregard of truth and reality. Elements of the American Left have long since fallen into this trap, which was clearly visible in the disgraceful riots and false narratives that were purveyed throughout the past year. But the Left is a subject for a separate analysis, and was not the cause of this latest display of un-American behavior. What happened at the Capitol was the crudest manifestation of a cancerous development in the American Right.
Only coming to a head in the past couple of years, some sectors of the Right have increasingly taken up the same characteristics of the radical Left, eschewing evidence and objective truth in favor of concocted ‘facts,’ rumor, and political expediency. Part of this is due to the state of American media, which is effectively inseparable from partisan interests, and has no compunction with twisting the truth to fit its desired narratives. In an environment where the traditional purveyors of truth are no longer trustworthy, it should be of no surprise that people begin to create their own ‘truth’ according to the whims of the moment. But that is only part of the problem. There are three other concerns that are the focus of this article: the cult of personality that surrounds Donald Trump, the turn away from objective truth and evidence-based politics, and the complete disregard for principle that accompanies the populism Trump embodies.
Donald Trump is undeniably a ‘larger than life’ figure in American politics – a quality that is simultaneously both to his advantage and potentially dangerous. He has managed to become the standard bearer of the fight against radical leftism (itself likely the greatest threat to the nation), but with that his personage has sucked most of the proverbial air out of the room. He has come to represent the end-all be-all for many people, the last standing bulwark between leftist tyranny and the American way of life. Further, his personality is entirely domineering – he leaves no room for alternative voices. Because of these issues, he has developed a cult of personality around him, whereby people do not so much identify with the principles of conservatism than they do with the way that Trump supposedly embodies them. In other words, they identify with the man first and the ideas second. Trump in his person, for many, determines the definition of conservatism, the platform of the Republican Party, and anyone who disagrees is simply a ‘RINO’ (Republican in name only) or a traitor, someone to be discarded. In the absence of a trusted source of truth, Trump has become the truth.
Trump’s claims of election fraud and the ‘steal’ of the election are, indeed, utterly unfounded. Yes, there was very likely some fraud in the 2020 presidential election, probably more so than in 2016 because of the vast expansion of mail-in balloting. Yes, some states bent the constitutionally-established rules for elections. But the fraud was, by all available evidence, nowhere near enough to make up for the substantial deficit in votes that Trump currently has, and the state legislatures have certified the electors, which is final. The courts have reviewed the allegations, and they have unanimously rejected them as either unfounded or severely lacking in evidence. Many of the judges who presided over these cases were Trump appointees. So unless the entire judicial system is utterly corrupted and Trump’s judicial appointments were horrible, it should be clear that the election was won fairly by Joe Biden.
But with the wholehearted support of Trump and in the environment of distrust that the media has created, there have been widespread rumors and supposed ‘evidence’ floating around that have severely undermined confidence in the election. Many on the Right, with the weight of Trump backing them, have produced an echochamber of sorts, throwing around allegations about widespread fraud and criminality. A now-famous uncontextualized video of hundreds of ballots in Georgia being taken out of suitcases continues to serve as primary evidence for many, despite the fact that its contents have been thoroughly explained by election officials. There are claims of Dominion voting machines being hacked or parts being changed – claims which even Newsmax retracted because they had no evidence to support them. The assertion that the Vice President could overturn the election results during the January 6th certification, which is partly what spurred the riot, is equally erroneous and unconstitutional. These make up but a small fraction of the untruths spread since the election. But Trump continues to echo these and numerous other claims, and people buy into them, not because they are backed by evidence, but because they come from Trump and his allies.
If Americans cannot operate on the basis of hard evidence and truth, then there cannot be a functioning polity. If the word of a few larger than life politicians is sufficient to serve as proof, if uncontextualized and uninvestigated information is turned into fact, and if there is a complete unwillingness to think critically and question sources, then Americans are jettisoning the very qualities that make human beings unique among animals: reason. If everything is relativized, with the Left having its ‘truth’ and the Right its own ‘truth,’ there is little to expect other than the collapse of the nation, something terrifyingly close to what was witnessed at the Capitol.
The populism that Trump represents has its own dangers. Populism, by its very definition, lacks principles. The foundations of populism shift with the fleeting whims of the people, whatever is in ‘vogue’ at the time is what the populist politician will latch on to. The Right has long prided itself, rightly, on its principled nature, with respect for the Constitution, the rule of law, equality under the law, and individual rights. But if the Right continues to embrace populism, it will abandon the feature, principle, that distinguishes it from the Left. Further, lack of principles is itself inherently dangerous. Anything is acceptable when principle is thrown away. There are those who argue that storming the Capitol was somehow justified. There are those who argue that overturning an election without adequate evidence is justified. What exactly is not justified in the name of some ever-changing (because there are no principles) goal? The deficit of principle also means that populism means vastly different things to different people, for there is no constant and accepted foundation. For one person populism can be a slightly modified conservatism, while for another it can mean some variant of radicalism. The inherent danger, then, is that there are no definitional limits to what populism can result in, and if history serves as any guide, government without limits is very undesirable.
It is worth noting Trump’s response to the egregious display at the Capitol, as it embodies some of what has been discussed in this article. In a video recording addressing what was then the ongoing storming of the Capitol, Trump said the following:
I know your pain. I know your hurt. We had an election that was stolen from us. It was a landslide election, and everyone knows it, especially the other side. But you have to go home now, we have to have peace. We have to have law and order, we have to respect our great people in law and order. We don’t want anybody hurt. It’s a very tough period of time. There’s never been a time like this where such a thing happened, where they could take it away from all of us — from me, from you, from our country. This was a fraudulent election, but we can’t play into the hands of these people. We have to have peace. So, go home. We love you, you’re very special. You’ve seen what happens. You see the way others are treated that are so bad and so evil. I know how you feel. But go home, and go home in peace.
He may have included the obligatory call for peace, and asked the rioters to go home, but it is immediately followed by a statement that completely contradicts such a message. Claiming (again, without evidence) that the election was a fraud, and that “they could take it away” is just reaffirming why the rioters stormed the Capitol to begin with! And to express sympathy and appreciation towards the very people who just committed one of the most un-American acts of the last century is equally absurd. There is no respect for the institutions of America, and there is no respect for the Constitution. This was the time that the nation most needed a national address from the President, but it did not receive one. Instead, it received a half-hearted plea for the rioters to go home while simultaneously feeding their fire. Principle, or more importantly, respect for the nation, would necessitate the wholehearted condemnation of the violence. But, of course, there is no principle to be had here.
The American Right needs to return to its Reaganesque roots, and to the principles of traditional American conservatism. It must refuse to follow the Left towards relativism and principle-free politics. It must reject the cult of personality that Trump has managed to create. This does not, and should not, mean a return to the days of Mitt Romney – far from it. It means that the Right must take the good things that the Trump presidency brought, particularly in the realm of confronting the tyrannical culture of the Left, fuse those good things with traditional conservatism, and move forward as a united, principled, and just force with which to confront the incoming Democratic government. Conservatism is just, it is right, and it is the best path forward for the nation. Trumpian populism is not.
Those that participated in the storming of the Capitol must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, and should be utterly ashamed at their sickening behavior. Events such as this must never happen again on American soil. Not only are they criminal, but they also provide a propaganda coup for the enemies of freedom. This is the antithesis of the kind of politics the Founders envisioned – there is no justification for what occurred, and there never will be. Now more than ever, the nation needs your prayers.