Charlottesville and the Flood of (Mostly Bad) Ideas

In the wake of tragedy, everyone is an expert and nobody is. "Expertise," it seems, is limited to repeating existing beliefs and prescriptions with the volume turned up higher. If there is one positive to emerge from that, it is that dumb and pernicious ideas are more likely to be exposed rather than lingering under the radar. Here are but a few to emerge after this weekend's brutal display in Charlottesville:

Dumb Takes

The Take: The Unite the Right Rally wasn't about hatred. It was about honoring white cultural heritage and protesting its erasure.

Who Said It: Peter Cvjetanovic, a student protester at the rally.

The Rationale: Robert E. Lee is an important figure in Virginia history. Acknowledging this does not make one a racist. Taking a stand against the erasure of history does not make one a Nazi.

Why It's Still Dumb: Robert E. Lee may be an intrinsic part of Virginia history, but he is a poor representation of white cultural heritage writ large. After all, he led forces that killed thousands of white men and defended an institution that plenty of white Americans opposed. When out-of-staters like Cvjetanovic of Nevada (or worse, protesters from Union states such as the disgraceful logo-stealing Detroit Right Wings) try to claim Confederate figures like Lee as part of "their" heritage, it isn't a white Euro-American cultural heritage to which they are referring; its an ideological, white supremacist one. Moreover, while it is true that not everyone who attended the rally identified as a Nazi or Klansman, they allowed themselves to be used to racially propagandistic ends. Even Cvjetanovic acknowledges that the now-viral image of him chanting and carrying a torch has "a very negative connotation." That patently obvious connotation (and his indifference to it), coupled with the presence of avowed hate/white supremacist groups at the rally, makes "I'm not one of them" an untenable position to take.



The Take: Free speech does not protect hate speech. / It's OK to punch a Nazi.

Who Said It: Jeff Winder, who assaulted white nationalist rally organizer Jason Kessler.

The Rationale: Hateful speech endangers peoples' lives and must be stamped out. Those who hide behind the banner of hate deserve what they get.

Why It's Still Dumb: Free speech DOES protect hate speech. No such exemption exists in the Constitution, and the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Brandenburg v. Ohio that the government cannot punish inflammatory speech. From a less legalistic perspective, it is worth remembering that one person's hate speech is another person's truth. We would not want our ideological opposites determining what is or what is not "hate" nor would they abide by our determination. It is also worth remembering that speech is not action. A word, no matter how ugly or obscene, is not a punch. A word is not a bullet. We are not justified in answering the former with the latter. The remedy to objectionable speech is more speech: condemnation, vilification, and scorn. (NOTE: As a Jewish man, I would probably find punching a Nazi to be viscerally satisfying, but neither that satisfaction nor the odiousness of my victim's views would make me right to do so. I would, however, invite him to heed the words of Jello Biafra).



The Take: “We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides.”

Who Said It: President Trump, in his initial statement in response to the rally

The Rationale: Bigotry, hatred, and violence should be condemned regardless of who spreads it, and contrary to media narratives, the Alt Right is not the only faction spreading it.

Why It's Dumb: The Trump presidency does not exist within a vacuum. It exists within a specific context that Trump is (or at least should be) well aware of. This context includes the presence of Naziphiles like Sebastian Gorka within the Trump administration as well as white supremacist David Duke announcing that the rally will "fulfill the promises of Donald Trump." Based on that, Trump's initial refusal to condemn white supremacy specifically reads as an act of moral cowardice, at best. Furthermore, while it is certainly true that Antifa is violent, "on both sides" suggests a false equivalency. Only one ideology's adherents ran people down with a car or viciously beat a man in a parking garage, and it wasn't the Alt Left.

Dumb Memes

"This is What a Terrorist Looks Like"

The Rationale: Self-explanatory

Why It's Dumb: "This is what a terrorist looks like" would fit pictures of Dylann Roof and Timothy McVeigh and many other white mass murderers as well. However, it would also fit pictures of John Allan Muhammad,

Omar Mateen,

and several more who were not white. All of them are terrorists by virtue of the acts that they committed, and the "terrorist" label is apt. However, "this is what a terrorist looks like" invites hostility toward those with a passing resemblance. If "this is what a terrorist looks like" suggests to you scapegoating when applied to a man with brown skin but not a man with white skin, your own biases bear closer examination.

One Smart Take

The Take: "Keep your history before you." Do not sanitize the past. Confront it and learn from it.

Who Said It: Condoleeza Rice, former U.S. Secretary of State

Why It Makes Sense: Tearing down monuments makes for convenient martyrs. Leaving up monuments forces us to confront the legacy of the memorialized. Despite their prominence, monuments and named buildings are not automatic hagiography. Because of their prominence, they are learning opportunities. This is as true of Northern racists and virulent anti-Semites like Thomas Edison and Henry Ford and Stalin apologists and totalitarian propagandists like Paul Robeson as it is of Confederate defenders of slavery like Lee.

Trump's Immigration Ban Is a Perfect Storm of Wrongs

Life is often a minefield of quandaries. Fidelity to principle is pitted against the needs of the moment. Legal and procedural correctness clash with spiritual concerns. It is rare for these various gauges of right and wrong to output the same reading, but President Trump’s executive order on immigration is that unicorn of error, wrong in just about every way imaginable.

Legally Wrong

Trump’s order suspends immigrant and nonimmigrant entry into the U.S. by citizens of Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen for 90 days and entry by Syrian refugees indefinitely. As Rep. Justin Amash (R-MI) and Cato Institute analyst David Bier have noted, the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which abolished the old quota system, effectively banned discrimination against immigrants on the basis of national origin. Trump’s order is therefore illegal.

Logically Wrong

The order’s defenders have likened Trump’s ban to the Obama administration’s delay in issuing visas to Iraqi nationals in 2011. This is, of course, a fallacious comparison. Obama’s State Department slowed down processing in response to a concern that two individuals were improperly screened. At no time was a ban enacted.

However, a faulty analogy is hardly the only logical sin committed. In instituting the immigration ban, Trump gave his rationale as “protect[ing] American people from terrorist attacks by foreign nationals admitted to the United States.” Yet as per a Wall Street Journal study, of the 180 people charged or implicated in jihadist terror plots since 2001, only 11 hailed from the seven countries affected by the ban. In other words, the solution is largely unrelated to the problem it portends to solve. We English professors – and, almost anyone who’s taken a freshman composition course, really – have a term for this kind of dissociative nonsense: non-sequitur. It does not follow.

Ethically Wrong

Interestingly, the immigration ban omits countries whose nationals have been implicated in terror plots but who are partner to some of Trump’s business ventures. Trump as ethically conflicted is old hat, nor is he unique among politicians in that regard. But Trump prioritizing his self-interest at the possible (albeit by no means certain) expense of national security while simultaneously claiming to champion it is, at least until the next atrocity manifests itself, a new low.

Morally Wrong

The callousness of turning away those seeking refuge from war and conflict (despite the existence of a rigorous vetting system) speaks for itself. However, beyond merely shutting the door on Syrian refugees and freezing the issuance of new visas from the aforementioned countries going forward, Trump’s order also affects existing visa and green card holders. By revoking previously granted permission to enter, Trump has, improbably, turned the U.S. government into more of a liar than it already is.

Beyond that, the order has had the deleterious effects of separating children from parents, betraying Iraqis who assisted U.S. armed forces, and endangering the safety of foreign nationals who defied their governments by championing democratic values.

As America’s character has long been shaped by the contributions of immigrants, Trump’s order is at odds with the country’s civic values. It also violates the moral values (of compassion, of kindness to strangers) of the faith that Trump and many Americans – including many of his supporters – claim to practice.

Politically Wrong

Even by that most disfavored of measures – political expediency – Trump’s order is a false move. While it has had the short-term effect of appeasing the nativist element within Trump’s base, it risks shrinking that base. Moreover, it may prompt more Republicans who see themselves as vulnerable in 2018 congressional elections to distance themselves from the president as some already have. Lastly, it leaves those Republicans who have not spoken out (on legal and procedural grounds if nothing else) with no leg to stand on should future Democratic presidents roll out broad, sweeping executive orders of their own.

Despite a long history of abuses in its name, national security rightfully remains a priority that any president should take seriously. But Trump’s executive order – illegal, illogical, impractical, and immoral – is about as far from an ideal solution as one can conceive of.