Healthy Democracies Reject the Mob
Plus: Right-wing pundits pretend Joe Biden hasn’t condemned campus antisemitism.
Opening statements are over with in Donald Trump’s New York business-records trial, although the trial didn’t get far beyond that Monday. The court gaveled out early for the observance of the beginning of Passover—and because an alternate juror had to depart over a “dental emergency.”
Had he lived, William Shakespeare would be 460 today. Happy Tuesday.
Reject the Mob. Every Mob.
The AP reports on this week’s spring breakdown:
Columbia canceled in-person classes, dozens of protesters were arrested at New York University and Yale, and the gates to Harvard Yard were closed to the public Monday as some of the most prestigious U.S. universities sought to defuse campus tensions over Israel’s war with Hamas.
More than 100 pro-Palestinian demonstrators who had camped out on Columbia’s green were arrested last week, and similar encampments have sprouted up at universities around the country as schools struggle with where to draw the line between allowing free expression while maintaining safe and inclusive campuses.
At New York University, an encampment set up by students swelled to hundreds of protesters throughout the day Monday. The school said it warned the crowd to leave, then called in the police after the scene became disorderly and the university said it learned of reports of “intimidating chants and several antisemitic incidents.” Shortly after 8:30 p.m., officers began making arrests.
Here’s a tweet from Jay Nordlinger that’s stuck with me: “There is scarcely anything in this world more terrifying than a mob. It is, frankly, pretty much at the root of my politics: this anti-mob feeling. Madisonian conservatism (or Madisonian liberalism, if you like) has struck me as right from a young age. Popular passions can kill.”
As we say on Twitter: 💯. Or even 💯💯.
Mobs can kill. They can also destroy the fabric of a civic order. They can disfigure the politics of a liberal, representative democracy. And so a healthy society will deter, will tamp down, will reject as much as possible mob action and mob spirit.
Now it’s of course true that there will always be elements of mob spirit in our politics, in our life. Some of the spirit of the mob runs, one might say, through each human soul.
A sound society suppresses that spirit to some extent. And since it can’t be altogether suppressed, a healthy social order also channels it, so it can be indulged and released harmlessly. A liberal democracy can have lots of sports fans.
But of course being a “fan” is the civilized version of being a fanatic.
Even in a healthy society, resistance to fanaticism is always fragile. And once fanaticism is unleashed, once the mob is empowered, it is hard to restore order and civility and decency.
Which is one reason thoughtful defenders of democracy have always feared demagogues, have sought to thwart their emergence, and have opposed them when they do rise.
Demagogues who can stoke mob spirit are dangerous. The problem with Donald Trump isn’t simply his policies, or his personal character. It’s his willingness, or rather his eagerness, to stoke the spirit of the mob. Trump’s posts on Truth Social condition some among us to the mob spirit as much as the hateful chants at Columbia or Yale condition others. MAGA is an expression of mob spirit. The campus encampments are manifestations of mob spirit.
And mob spirit is always nearer at hand than those with a sunny view of human nature would like. The lynch mobs in the South often consisted of respectable citizens, pillars of their communities. Many Berliners who participated in Kristallnacht went back to their normal office and jobs the next day.
So I’m with Jay on this. It seems simple, but it’s important: Be anti-mob. Because resisting and combating mob spirit is central to our political and social well-being.
And not just when that spirit is on the other side politically. Indeed, it’s more important to resist the mob when it claims to be acting for purposes you agree with.
Yes, it’s true that the consequences of the mob spirit taking over one of our two major political parties are greater than those of the mob spirit erupting on some elite college campuses. But lesser evils are still evil, and they can grow into greater ones. And history also suggests that indulging the mob spirit on one side soon enough empowers it on another. The mob spirit must be resisted across the board.
Resisting the mob isn’t all it takes to establish a sound society or a healthy politics. But it’s a necessary start.
—William Kristol
Constructing ‘Silent Biden’
It’s been a bizarre spectacle for months: On the one hand, pro-Palestinian elements of the U.S. left in open war against President Joe Biden over his support for Israel, denouncing him as “Genocide Joe” and swearing to withhold their votes in November. On the other hand, a legion of conservative pundits insisting the pro-Palestinian protests prove Biden is controlled by his party’s far left.
This ridiculous phenomenon reached new heights this week: When oh when, the pundits sighed, will Biden finally man up and denounce the left-wing protesters roiling college campuses?
Here was Washington Post columnist Marc Thiessen yesterday: “Joe Biden condemned what he called the ‘antisemitic bile’ of right-wing marchers in Charlottesville, Virginia, and called it a ‘defining moment’ for America. Today we’re witnessing Charlottesville happening on the campus of Columbia University but Biden is silent. This is a defining moment for this presidency. Will he keep pandering to the antisemitic left or confront it the way he did the antisemitic right?”
Here was popular radio host Erick Erickson: “When confronted by the racists and the bigots on his own side, Biden is choosing to ignore antisemitism on Ivy League campuses while attempting to buy their votes by paying off their massive student loan debts with your tax dollars.”
And here was the right-wing pundit-in-chief, speaking as he showed up for his New York trial this morning: “You have no [police] up there at college, where you have very radical people wanting to rip the colleges down, universities down. And that’s a shame. But it all starts with Joe Biden—the signals he puts out are so bad.”
These critiques would have read as odd to anyone who’d actually checked what Biden had said about the recent protests. Here was his statement just this weekend: “Even in recent days, we’ve seen harassment and calls for violence against Jews. This blatant antisemitism is reprehensible and dangerous—and it has absolutely no place on college campuses or anywhere in our country . . . We must speak out against the alarming surge of antisemitism—in our schools, communities, and online. Silence is complicity.”
Yesterday, in an off-the-cuff interaction with a reporter, he doubled down: “I condemn the antisemitic protests.” He added that he also condemned “those who don’t understand what’s going on with the Palestinians,” although a reporter cut him off with another question before he finished that thought.
It’d be one thing for pundits to criticize Biden’s stance on left-wing antisemitism as insufficient. The White House has had an eyeroll-inducing moment or two to pick at: “What does the president think about young people in America saying things like ‘we are all Hamas’ and ‘long live Hamas?” a reporter asked Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre at a briefing last week. “Look, this is a president that has been, since he’s been in office, and the reason why he ran—he’s been very clear about what he witnessed in Charlottesville,” Jean-Pierre replied. “Let’s not forget what we saw, the antisemitism, the bigotry, that we saw in the street of Charlottesville.” She went on to say that all antisemitism is “completely unacceptable.”
But it’s another thing altogether to accuse Biden of being silent when he’s plainly been anything but. It’s the sort of attack that relies on the complete splintering and partisan siloing of political information streams—there’s no way to make accusations like that without destroying your own credibility unless you’re confident your audience just won’t have encountered the facts that debunk you.
Politics ain’t beanbag, and all politicians have to endure unfair hits. But there’s an asymmetrical danger to politicians like Biden in this environment. For base-only politicians like Donald Trump, political media is shirts-and-skins: Left-wing and mainstream media relentlessly oppose him, but that’s counterbalanced by a conservative infotainment complex that worships the ground on which he walks. Meanwhile, politicians willing to buck elements of their own base are in a lose-lose situation: Leftist media is outraged at Biden’s support for Israel, while conservative media perpetuates a fiction that he’s standing in solidarity with the Hamas sympathizers.
—Andrew Egger
Catching up . . .
Police arrest NYU antiwar protesters, California students form barricade: Washington Post
Judge to consider holding Trump in contempt for verbal attacks: New York Times
U.S. takes aim at Chinese banks aiding Russian war effort: Wall Street Journal
House Republican infighting getting worse after foreign aid vote: Washington Post
‘Ungovernable’: How Republicans willingly gave up power in the House of Representatives: Axios
Baltimore says Dali owners’ negligence caused Francis Scott Key bridge collapse: The Daily Beast
Quick Hits
1. Outflanking MTG on Faith
It’s House Democrats who are likely to step up and save Speaker Mike Johnson’s job, should Marjorie Taylor Greene follow through on her threat to try to ax him. But as MSNBC columnist Sarah Posner points out, Greene isn’t necessarily demolishing Johnson in the court of conservative Christian public opinion either:
Greene and her fellow ideologues may want to tread carefully. There is a growing backlash on the Christian right against the move to oust Johnson. While Greene’s MAGA influencer antics garner significant media attention, people with longtime clout in the evangelical political trenches, including Johnson himself, have been waging a quiet but scathing war against her in Christian media. The GOP’s evangelical base — vital to Republican hopes in the fall — is hearing that Greene is groundlessly attacking a godly man and imperiling the party’s election chances, thus bringing (in Johnson’s words) the Democrats’ “crazy woke agenda” closer to fruition.
Johnson himself struck first, appearing on the Christian Broadcasting Network with David Brody, a popular evangelical reporter known for nabbing newsy interviews with Washington insiders. . . Fully aware that Brody’s audience knows his long track record as a loyal foot soldier in the battle for the Christian nation, Johnson reminded CBN viewers of his Christian bona fides. “I try to follow all the biblical admonitions as I do every day,” Johnson said. “One of them says you ‘bless those who persecute you.’ I’m getting a lot of practice in that right now and that is, ‘A soft word turns away wrath.’”
A few days after the CBN interview, Johnson appeared on the inaugural episode of right-wing Salem News Network’s new show “This Week on the Hill,” hosted by Family Research Council president Tony Perkins. At first, Johnson and Perkins, one of the most influential evangelical figures inside the Beltway, spent considerable time attacking President Biden and the Democrats. But then they turned their attention inside the GOP caucus.
While Perkins and Johnson did not name Greene directly, the implication was obvious, as was their fear that her theatrics could cost Republicans on Election Day. Perkins first criticized “some members” of Congress who “are here more to build their brand than they are to govern and lead the country.” Johnson insisted that “I’m not talking about anyone individually,” but went on to admonish Republicans to “make sure people who come here are coming to govern and not just be famous.” But after Perkins brought up Greene’s motion to vacate, the pair lambasted it and her threats to shut down the government, which they concluded would only come back to bite them in November. “This is a dangerous gambit,” Johnson concluded. “We’ve got to keep the train on the tracks, and this is not a helpful thing.”
It’s a fascinating dynamic. Go read the whole thing.
2. Just Tweet It All Out
“Posting everything reporters ask is the hot new campaign strategy,” NOTUS’s Evan McMorris-Santoro and Katherine Swartz write:
Reporters—doing the traditional thing of asking campaigns questions or giving them a chance to respond to reporting before publishing a story —are increasingly finding their emails to campaign staff, and their names and sometimes contact info, screenshotted and posted online like footage from a hidden-camera video. While not a complete innovation, especially in the years after former President Donald Trump normalized calling reporters “the enemy,” the notion that basic reporting is a smoking gun of some kind is moving out of the political fringes and into the mainstream Republican campaign strategy.
David McCormick, the likely GOP nominee in Pennsylvania’s highly competitive Senate race, posted screenshots on Thursday of a “no surprises” email from a New York Times reporter seeking comment ahead of a story examining the ways McCormick has described his upbringing on the campaign trail. The email was essentially standard industry practice of presenting the subject of a story with what gathered reporting has shown and offering them a chance to respond, give context, suggest other people to talk to or correct blatant inaccuracies. McCormick’s campaign named the reporter in the post on X and said the letter was proof she was “writing a story filled w/ frivolous lies.” The campaign then fundraised off the accusation, blasting out an email appeal with a similar theme on Friday morning.
“When a lefty news outlet refuses to report the truth and is intentionally misleading voters on behalf of the Democratic Party, action has to be taken to get out the real story,” Elizabeth Gregory, McCormick’s communications director, told NOTUS.
The New York Times published its story on Friday after the public complaint and fundraising appeal. As of Monday afternoon, the story had no listed updates or corrections.
Cheap Shots
I'm struck by one statement in particular I've read that one of the defense lawyers presented on behalf of DJT at trial: "“There’s nothing wrong with trying to influence an election. It’s called democracy.”
Let's hope the jurors are smart enough to see through that specious argument. From where I sit it's rather like taking the introduction and the index of a long book (let's say The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, for our purposes) and saying that it's all you need to read in order to understand the work and its premise. Once one accepts the premise that anything goes under the guise of influencing an election and having a democracy, it becomes much easier to accept a lot of unsavory democratic practices for the sake of convenience.
Suddenly it becomes okay to lie about election results, put forth slates of false electors, stack the deck with "evidence" of crimes not committed, and alter the legitimate results as one sees fit.
Suddenly it becomes okay to manipulate social media with AI and other applications in order to tell a story that never happened and impugn the character and credibility of those who fairly oppose your agenda and the practice of it.
Suddenly it becomes okay to hijack the legislative process by a handful of extremists with their own self-serving agenda, casting chaos and unnecessary delays into important Congressional activities and getting little to nothing done on behalf of all taxpaying constituents who foot the bill for their salary, pension, and benefits.
Suddenly it becomes okay to cozy up to real and wannabe dictators and other "strong men" whose agenda does not have America's best interests at heart and who actively work to subvert our own democratic institutions.
And suddenly it becomes okay to stage a violent insurrection at one of our most sacred institutions.
Of course the list could go on, but the point is clear. It seems on the right, democracy now is whatever one defines it to be as long as you are in agreement with what the fomentors of discord and mayhem want to do. It takes little imagination to see how they would react if it were those dreaded leftists attempting the same thing and seeking to empower their own people and agenda with the same tactics and justifications. Rest assured that it will get only worse if the right does not attain the results that it wants in November. And likely even if it does.
Watching/listening to what is going on at Columbia and other top tier private universities reminds me soooo much of what I saw on the streets after the first month of the Occupy Wall Street movement. I was working private security at the Deutsche Bank HQ at 60 Wall at the time, and what had started out as a genuine anti-corporatism movement devolved into mobs of young Millennials holding up cell phone cams and shouting in unison when they weren't doing drum circles at camp sites, refusing to bath, and shitting in the streets. This kind of stuff was the beginning of what we now call the "campus left," and the Palestinian solidarity movement is a direct offshoot of this kind of far left click, only it's Zoomers this time instead of Millennials. Same shit, different generation. I imagine Woodstock was very similar, but I never lived through the late 60's so I wouldn't know.
If history is any guide, a good 80-90% of these kids are going to sell out and put all of this stuff behind them after they graduate and go off to work for large companies as they ride the escalator to the upper middle class. The smart ones will scrub their social media history before doing so.