„Each violation of our Constitution and our civic peace gets absorbed, rationalized, and accepted by people who once upon a time knew better“. Read this smart piece by @anneapplebaum about the „collaborationisms“ we are witnessing in the US. theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…
The piece is powerful because it dissects the part of Trumpism that has most shocked and vexed me and many of my colleagues and friends: Why do people who know better and who have little to fear enable, aide and abet him?
One of the saddest, most infuriating things about reporting on this pandemic has been watching country after country fail to learn: from experts, from the past, from each other. Watching US politics and reading this piece makes me feel something very similar.
As a German living in Berlin, some of the history described in this piece is all too close and palpable and maybe that helps to see things clearly, but as @anneapplebaum points out, even without that precedent a simple dictum should be enough: „Just try to be decent.“
What shocks me most when I look at the GOP today is that, honestly, I don’t see a lot of people even try.
And one last excellent point from the piece: „Sometimes the point isn’t to make people believe a lie—it’s to make people fear the liar.“
We would do well as journalists to remember this...
We would do well as journalists to remember this...
