I don’t know about you all, but I am sick and tired of all the hypocrisy.
Perhaps I should be more specific: I’m tired of the word “hypocrisy” and the way people use it to describe things that—on further review—are something much different.
I’ve been covering national politics since Barack Obama’s first term (ouch) and written my share of stories about politicians who say one thing and do another. Barring some major overhaul of our political system (or human nature), I’m probably going to write more. But as I argued in a recent piece for the magazine, Donald Trump’s presidency has shown the limits of “hypocrisy” as a political criticism. It’s not just that this is inherently a meta-narrative, an attempt to call a foul in a sport with no referees. It’s that it misses something fundamental about the president and his henchmen: So many of the things that are described as shameless double standards are, in fact, insidious expressions of principle.
You have not caught the president and his supporters off their line by noting that they attack others for conduct they themselves engage in; you have captured their essence—a desire for dominance and impunity, and an avowed illiberalism that has been incubating in the conservative movement for generations. Hierarchies of citizenship are the rule. Exulting in “justice for me and pain for thee” does not necessarily make someone a hypocrite; it might just make them a fascist.
You can read the full piece here.
—Tim Murphy
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